Better surgery for epilepsy

In his doctoral thesis, Cyrille Ferrier writes that in 80 to 90 percent of cases, the presence of a certain kind of epileptic activity – known as dense patterns – predicts the presence of a hereditary disorder in the brain.

Because this kind of disorder is not always visible with a brain scan, electrophysiological measurement of epileptic activity clearly has added value. This knowledge is useful when operating on an epileptic brain, something that is a last resort when trying to get untreatable epilepsy under control. If a hereditary disorder is the cause of the epilepsy, the electrophysiological measurement is necessary to establish whether the abnormal patterns are no longer present following surgery.

Cyrille Ferrier: "Clinical neurophysiological correlates of histopathological abnormalities in epilepsy surgery"