A new study recently featured in medical journal, The Lancet Neurology, has reported that seizure activity for people with focal epilepsy could be predicted up to day or more in advance of a seizure.
The findings were based on continuous EEG data from patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy who had the NeuroPace responsive neurostimulation (RNS) device implanted for clinical indications. These patients were followed at 35 epilepsy centres in the U.S. from January 2004 to May 2018.
When researchers investigated the data that was collected from these centres, they found that activity in the brain which caused seizures was much less random than expected.
The data investigated showed that brain activity within patients showed weekly or monthly cycles in the lead up to their seizures.
For many people with epilepsy, the ability to predict seizures has long been seen as the “holy grail” in terms of epilepsy management.
While we are still a way off from being able to accurately predict seizures, the paper published in The Lancet may be an important discovery for the hope that one day, there will be a method to do just that.
You can read more about this research by visiting the Lancet website, while in the video below, researchers involved in the project give an overview of the paper. We will continue to monitor emerging global research and post updates on our website and social media channels.