Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Program News and Events

Groundbreaking research from Stanford Medicine sheds light on how adaptive myelination — a brain process linked to learning — can be co-opted by seizures, exacerbating epilepsy. Led by Dr. Juliet Knowles, this study opens new avenues for potential therapies targeting maladaptive myelination. With nearly 30% of children with epilepsy facing challenges with conventional treatments, this discovery represents hope for more effective, personalized options on the horizon.

Researchers at Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute are pioneering innovative non-invasive methods to study and treat complex brain conditions, eliminating the need for invasive procedures. By leveraging technologies such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and focused ultrasound, these advances aim to transform patient care, making neurological treatments safer and more accessible than ever before.

Six-year-olds who were exposed prenatally to common antiseizure medications had normal verbal and cognitive abilities, a large, multisite study has found.

In an analysis of more than 2 million patient records, researchers discovered that people taking angiotensin receptor blockers for high blood pressure were less likely to develop epilepsy.

New study shows that newer epilepsy drugs taken during pregnancy do not affect a child's creative thinking. However, higher drug concentrations in the third trimester might affect executive function performance. More research is needed to fully gauge the effects.

Wu Tsai Neuro's fifth round of seed grants spark innovative collaborations advancing our knowledge of the mind and brain across the lifespan. Three Stanford Neurology & Neurological Sciences faculty are among recipients.

Brenda E. Porter, MD, PhD, FAES, was awarded the J. Kiffin Penry Award for Excellence in Epilepsy Care during the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Epilepsy Society (AES). The J. Kiffin Penry Award for Excellence in Epilepsy Care honors Dr. Penry’s lifelong focus on and genuine concern for people with epilepsy. It recognizes individuals whose work has had a major impact on patient care and has improved the quality of life for persons with epilepsy. Congratulations, Dr. Porter!

Dr. Fiona Baumer joins host Nicholas Weiler in a podcast from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University as they dive into the misunderstood and often stigmatized world of epilepsy.

Congratulations to Juliet Knowles, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology, for receiving The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience 2023 Neurobiology of Brain Disorders Award for her work "Neuron-to-OPC synapses in adaptive and maladaptive myelination".

In the first of its kind, a group of investigators at Stanford Healthcare mapped the pathways for seizure propagation through the brain’s switchboard (thalamus) in patients with presumed refractory temporal lobe epilepsy by recording simultaneously from multiple sites within this structure. Their findings - now published by Teresa Wu and colleagues in Brain – reveals a novel and surprising finding: In more than half of the patients, seizures do not spread the way we thought they did! They concluded that personalized targeting of the thalamus for neuromodulation in each patient may lead to better treatment outcomes in these patients.

Congratulations, Yi Li, MD, PhD, for receiving an American Epilepsy Society Junior Investigator Award for her work titled "Genetic impact of women with epilepsy on their children’s cognitive outcome".

Stanford Medicine researcher Josef Parvizi explores the neural origins of where one's sense of self lives in the brain.

A Neurology study found that psychiatric symptoms occur at higher rates during pregnancy and postpartum in women with epilepsy. Experts recommend that neurologists conduct routine assessments and treatment when the symptoms occur during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Stanford-led study gives new insight into how epilepsy, pregnancy and symptoms of mood disorders interact.

Drs. Juliet Knowles, John Huguenard and Michelle Monje led studies which demonstrated that activity-dependent myelin plasticity, which occurs in the setting of seizures, can promote further seizure progression. This is the first demonstration of maladaptive myelination: activity-dependent myelination that promotes a disease process.

In an ongoing multicenter NIH study of pregnancy outcomes in women with epilepsy, Dr. Meador and colleagues found that breastfeeding while taking antiseizure medications did not have any adverse effects on the child’s cognitive function at age 3 years old. This may be in part because the concentrations of antiseizure medications are much lower in these child than their mothers. Given the multiple known benefits of breastfeeding to the mother and child, Dr. Meador encourages women with epilepsy to breastfeed.

Dravet's syndrome is a severe epilepsy of childhood with difficult to treat seizures, cognitive abnormalities and premature death. Professor David Prince, Feng Gu and colleagues in Neurology and Neurological Sciences showed that they can limit seizures and death in a mouse model of Dravet's using a small molecule that corrects a basic abnormality in brain nerve cells. Results may have significant translational impact.

Complex brain surgery performed at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford cures severe epilepsy in a 7-year-old boy.

Toddlers whose mothers took certain epilepsy drugs during pregnancy are unlikely to have development delays, according to a new study led by Kimford Meador, professor of neurology and neurological sciences.

Congratulations to Juliet Knowles, MD, PhD, Instructor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences, the 2020 PERF Elterman Research Grant Recipient for her project "Targeting Aberrant Activity-Dependent Myelination in Absence Epilepsy".