Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0014547 (focal epilepsy)
 1,627 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A wide range of clinical presentations including neuromuscular disorders and autoimmune encephalopathies is being recognized to be associated with various autoantibodies. Glycine receptor (GlyR) antibodies have so far been found mainly in adult patients with phenotypes comprising progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity and myoclonus or stiff-person syndrome. We report a four-year-old boy who presented with a two-year-history of drug-resistant focal epilepsy with unusual seizure semiology, temper tantrums, headache, clumsiness, and intermittently impaired speech. While MRI and CSF were normal, screening for autoimmune antibodies revealed GlyR antibodies in serum. Immunomodulatory treatment with steroids resulted in rapid and complete resolution of symptoms. Our observation widens the spectrum of clinical presentations associated with GlyR antibodies and emphasizes the potential relevance of neuronal autoantibodies in epilepsies of unknown cause in children as well as in adults.
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PMID:Glycine receptor antibodies in a boy with focal epilepsy and episodic behavioral disorder. 2488 May 41

One hundred patients with focal epilepsy were recruited for the present study and their seizures controlled with antiepileptic drugs. The patients then orally received a capsule of tall gastrodis tuber powder, a traditional Chinese drug, and underwent single photon emission computed tomography, long-term electroencephalogram, and CT/MRI. Blood drug levels were monitored throughout the study. Before treatment with tall gastrodis tuber, 35 of the 100 cases had abnormal CT/MRI scans; 79 cases had abnormal single photon emission computed tomography images; 86 cases had abnormal electroencephalogram; and a total of 146 abnormal perfusion foci were observed across the 100 subjects. After treatment, the number of patients with normal single photon emission computed tomography images increased by 12; normal electroencephalogram was observed in an additional 27 cases and the number of patients with epileptiform discharge decreased by 29 (34% of 86); the total number of abnormal perfusion foci decreased by 52 (36%) and changes in abnormal foci were visible in 65 patients. These changes indicate that the administration of tall gastrodis tuber in combination with antiepileptic drugs repairs abnormal perfusion foci in patients with focal epilepsy. Our results demonstrate that traditional Chinese drugs can repair abnormal perfusion foci and, as such, are a promising new pathway in the treatment of focal epilepsy.
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PMID:Tall gastrodis tuber combined with antiepileptic drugs repairs abnormal perfusion foci in focal epilepsy. 2520 90

Epilepsy surgery is the most effective way to control seizures in patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy, often leading to improvements in cognition, behaviour, and quality of life. Risks of serious adverse events and deterioration of clinical status can be minimised in carefully selected patients. Accordingly, guidelines recommend earlier and more systematic assessment of patients' eligibility for surgery than is seen at present. The effectiveness of surgical treatment depends on epilepsy type, underlying pathology, and accurate localisation of the epileptogenic brain region by various clinical, neuroimaging, and neurophysiological investigations. Substantial progress has been made in the methods of presurgical assessment, particularly in patients with normal features on MRI, but evidence is scarce for the indication and effect of most presurgical investigations, with no biomarker precisely delineating the epileptogenic zone. A priority for the development of epilepsy surgery is the generation of high-level evidence to promote the harmonisation and dissemination of best practices.
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PMID:Epilepsy surgery in children and adults. 2531 18

The spatial coherence of spontaneous slow fluctuations in the blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal at rest is routinely used to characterize the underlying resting-state networks (RSNs). Studies have demonstrated that these patterns are organized in space and highly reproducible from subject to subject. Moreover, RSNs reorganizations have been suggested in pathological conditions. Comparisons of RSNs organization have been performed between groups of subjects but have rarely been applied at the individual level, a step required for clinical application. Defining the notion of modularity as the organization of brain activity in stable networks, we propose Detection of Abnormal Networks in Individuals (DANI) to identify modularity changes at the individual level. The stability of each RSN was estimated using a spatial clustering method: Bootstrap Analysis of Stable Clusters (BASC) (Bellec et al., 2010). Our contributions consisted in (i) providing functional maps of the most stable cores of each networks and (ii) in detecting "abnormal" individual changes in networks organization when compared to a population of healthy controls. DANI was first evaluated using realistic simulated data, showing that focussing on a conservative core size (50% most stable regions) improved the sensitivity to detect modularity changes. DANI was then applied to resting state fMRI data of six patients with focal epilepsy who underwent multimodal assessment using simultaneous EEG/fMRI acquisition followed by surgery. Only patient with a seizure free outcome were selected and the resected area was identified using a post-operative MRI. DANI automatically detected abnormal changes in 5 out of 6 patients, with excellent sensitivity, showing for each of them at least one "abnormal" lateralized network closely related to the epileptic focus. For each patient, we also detected some distant networks as abnormal, suggesting some remote reorganization in the epileptic brain.
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PMID:Detection of abnormal resting-state networks in individual patients suffering from focal epilepsy: an initial step toward individual connectivity assessment. 2556 49

Singing is a rare ictal symptom of focal epilepsy. Here, we report a case of a right-handed patient who demonstrated ictal singing due to right mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Subtraction ictal SPECT coregistered to MRI (SISCOM) performed during ictal singing demonstrated areas of hyperperfusion in the bilateral frontal regions (more prominent in the left frontal lobe), bilateral subcortical regions, insular cortices, and bilateral cerebellum in addition to the right temporal area. An intracranial EEG revealed that an ictal singing episode commenced after an ictal rhythm from the right temporal area was propagated to the contralateral side of the left hemisphere. These findings suggest that the symptomatogenic zone for ictal singing includes neural networks from the frontal and temporal regions of both hemispheres rather than specific cortical areas even when the epileptogenic zone is located in the right mesial temporal area, as evidenced in this patient.
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PMID:Ictal singing due to right mesial temporal lobe epilepsy involving a bihemispheric network. 2566 36

Recent resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) studies have demonstrated that the human brain is composed of several essential large-scale functional brain networks, including the "default-mode network". We analyzed electrocorticogram data from four patients with intractable focal epilepsy and compared the extent of these large-scale functional brain networks with propagation pathways of ictal discharge. We found that large-scale functional brain networks had markedly similar spatial patterns compared with multisite ictal fast activity, suggesting that some epileptic activity propagates along large-scale functional brain networks. Given that decreased functional connectivity in large-scale functional brain networks has been reported in patients with focal epilepsy, ictal propagation may lead to chronic alteration of normal functional networks in the brain.
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PMID:[Epilepsy and functional brain networks]. 2567 30

COL4A1 is located in humans on chromosome13q34 and it encodes the alpha 1 chain of type IV collagen, a component of basal membrane. It is expressed mainly in the brain, muscles, kidneys and eyes. Different COL4A1 mutations have been reported in many patients who present a very wide spectrum of clinical symptoms. They typically show a multisystemic phenotype. Here we report on the case of a patient carrying a novel de novo splicing mutation of COL4A1 associated with a distinctive clinical picture characterized by onset in infancy and an unusual evolution of the neuroradiological features. At three months of age, the child was diagnosed with a congenital cataract, while his brain MRI was normal. Over the following years, the patient developed focal epilepsy, mild diplegia, asymptomatic microhematuria, raised creatine kinase levels, MRI white matter abnormalities and brain calcification on CT. During the neuroradiological follow-up the extension and intensity of the brain lesions progressively decreased. The significance of a second variant in COL4A1 carried by the child and inherited from his father remains to be clarified. In conclusion, our patient shows new aspects of this collagenopathy and possibly a COL4A1 compound heterozygosity.
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PMID:A novel mutation in COL4A1 gene: a possible cause of early postnatal cerebrovascular events. 2570 14

Electroencephalogram (EEG) has been traditionally used to determine which brain regions are the most likely candidates for resection in patients with focal epilepsy. This methodology relies on the assumption that seizures originate from the same regions of the brain from which interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) emerge. Preclinical models are very useful to find correlates between IED locations and the actual regions underlying seizure initiation in focal epilepsy. Rats have been commonly used in preclinical studies of epilepsy; hence, there exist a large variety of models for focal epilepsy in this particular species. However, it is challenging to record multichannel EEG and to perform brain source imaging in such a small animal. To overcome this issue, we combine a patented-technology to obtain 32-channel EEG recordings from rodents and an MRI probabilistic atlas for brain anatomical structures in Wistar rats to perform brain source imaging. In this video, we introduce the procedures to acquire multichannel EEG from Wistar rats with focal cortical dysplasia, and describe the steps both to define the volume conductor model from the MRI atlas and to uniquely determine the IEDs. Finally, we validate the whole methodology by obtaining brain source images of IEDs and compare them with those obtained at different time frames during the seizure onset.
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PMID:Brain Source Imaging in Preclinical Rat Models of Focal Epilepsy using High-Resolution EEG Recordings. 2613 55

Rasmussen's encephalitis is a rare, chronic inflammatory disorder of unknown cause, characterised by drug-resistant focal epilepsy that may rarely present in adolescence or adulthood. We present a case of Rasmussen's encephalitis with prominent recurrent fluctuation in symptoms and well-documented fluctuating changes on MRI, adding to the spectrum of diversity of Rasmussen's encephalitis.
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PMID:Multiphasic presentation of Rasmussen's encephalitis. 2623 16

Individuals with focal epilepsy have heterogeneous sites of seizure origin. However, there may be brain regions that are common to most cases of intractable focal epilepsy. In this study, we aim to identify these using multivariate analysis of task-free functional MRI. Fourteen subjects with extratemporal focal epilepsy and 14 healthy controls were included in the study. Task-free functional MRI data were used to calculate voxel-wise regional connectivity with regional homogeneity (ReHo) and weighted degree centrality (DCw), in addition to regional activity using fraction of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF). Multivariate pattern analysis was applied to each of these metrics to discriminate brain areas that differed between focal epilepsy subjects and healthy controls. ReHo and DCw classified focal epilepsy subjects from healthy controls with high accuracy (89.3% and 75%, respectively). However, fALFF did not significantly classify patients from controls. Increased regional network activity in epilepsy subjects was seen in the ipsilateral piriform cortex, insula, and thalamus, in addition to the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and lateral frontal cortices. Decreased regional connectivity was observed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, as well as lateral temporal cortices. Patients with extratemporal focal epilepsy have common areas of abnormality (ReHo and DCw measures), including the ipsilateral piriform cortex, temporal neocortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. ReHo shows additional increase in the "salience network" that includes anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex. DCw showed additional effects in the ipsilateral thalamus and striatum. These brain areas may represent key regional network properties underlying focal epilepsy.
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PMID:Abnormal Brain Areas Common to the Focal Epilepsies: Multivariate Pattern Analysis of fMRI. 2653 83


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