Children with epilepsy often face multiple challenges -- not only seizures but learning, cognitive and school difficulties, side effects from medication, and, not surprisingly, social stigma from their peers.

Medications are the mainstay of treatment for epilepsy, but for a considerable number of patients -- estimated to be as many as 1 million in the U.S. -- drugs don't work. These patients suffer from a type of epilepsy known as refractory or drug-resistant epilepsy, in which drugs can't control their seizures.

A dozen new epilepsy drugs are giving doctors and patients more options, but making treatment decisions more complex, a Loyola epilepsy specialist reports in the journal Neurologic Clinics.

In the Old West, camps sent smoke signals across distances to share key developments or strategy. Likewise, two important signaling molecules communicate across nerve cells to regulate electrical and chemical activity, neuroscientists from the UT Health Science Center San Antonio have reported.
The findings in rodent models have implications for potential future treatment of epilepsy, stroke and other problems, the researchers said.

Researchers from the Center have identified a new gene that predisposes people to both autism and epilepsy.