Short Anatomy Paper on Epilepsy

**I am also working on my own research project on cataplexy and narcolepsy, which I will put up here when I finish it, so look for it sometime in the near future!!!**

Epilepsy

         Seizures are a misfiring of neurons in the brain.  A person is considered to have epilepsy when they have had two or more of these seizures.  Epilepsy has many possible causes.  It can develop because of an abnormality in brain wiring or an imbalance of certain neurotransmitters, or some combination of the two.  This can be caused by a stroke, head trauma, tumor, or infection, but in some cases it may be idiopathic - with no known cause.  There is some evidence to suggest in those cases there may be a genetic predisposition for epilepsy.
         Epilepsy can be diagnosed with EEGs and brain scans that detect the abnormalities in the brain activity during a seizure.  In order for a diagnosis to be made, though, there need to be recurrent seizures that are unprovoked, meaning they are not triggered by any obviously harmful thing, and are triggered by normal everyday things such as sleeping, illness, stress, alcohol consumption, or the most well known, flickering lights (which is only a trigger in about 5% of people with epilepsy.)
         There are different types of seizures, classified first based on the source and second based on how much it affects consciousness.  By source, there are partial (focal) seizures, which only involve a localized part of the brain,  and generalized seizures, which involve all of both hemispheres, resulting in a loss of consciousness.  Secondary generalization is when a partial seizure spreads to the whole brain and becomes generalized.  Under partial seizures, there are simple partial seizures where consciousness is not impaired, and complex partial seizures, where it is impaired.  Under generalized seizures there are 6 types: absence seizures (where the person becomes vacant for a short time), also known as petit mal, myoclonic seizures (which involve a brief muscle contraction less than 1/10 of a second), clonic seizures (regularly repeating muscle contractions at about 2-3 per second), tonic seizures (continuous contraction of the muscles), tonic-clonic seizures (involve an initial contraction of the muscles and possible absence of breathing, then a clonic stage), also known as grand mal, and atonic seizures (a loss of muscle tone, the person falls to the ground.)
         There are also many treatments for epilepsy, but there is no cure.  For most epileptics, the disorder can be treated with anti-seizure medications such as Dilantin, Topamax, and others.  To stop an active seizure, medications like Valium may be used.  Surgery may also be used when an area of abnormality in the brain can be found.  One of the first surgical treatments for epilepsy was to cut the corpus callosum, therefore stopping a seizure from spreading to the opposite hemisphere of the brain.  Other surgeries include removing the front part of the temporal lobe or even an entire hemisphere.  These drastic surgeries have obvious severe side effects, but newer surgeries are much better.  Only the damaged areas of the brain can be removed, and nothing more - leaving the patient fully functional and, if the operation is successful, seizure-free.  Another more mysterious treatment is vagus nerve stimulation, approved by the FDA in 1997.
         Most people with epilepsy can live mostly normal lives.  Epilepsy can’t be cured, but seizures can be prevented and it can eventually go away for some people.  Most seizures don’t cause brain damage and are mostly harmless, the only real danger is that epileptics have a higher risk of both status epilepticus (which is dangerous because of the lack of oxygen to the brain) and sudden unexplained death.  In some states, people with epilepsy cannot get a driver’s liscence.
         Some famous people that had epilepsy include Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carrol, Napoleon Bonaparte, Harriet Tubman, Vincent van Gogh, and possibly Beethoven.


Bibliography

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure_types
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?call=bv.View..ShowSection&rid=gnd...
  http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/epilepsy/epilepsy.htm