CURE Epilepsy is dedicated to funding patient-focused research to find a cure for the 65 million people with epilepsy worldwide. This month, we share the following articles and abstracts which are furthering the study of epilepsy and bringing the world closer to a cure.

The genetic basis of many epilepsies is increasingly understood. This gives rise to the possibility of precision treatments that can be tailored to a person’s specific genetic epilepsy. CURE Epilepsy Taking Flight grantee Juliet Knowles, MD, PhD, led a collection of prominent stakeholders within the epilepsy community, including CURE Epilepsy’s Dr. Laura Lubbers, in authoring a critical review that describes recent progress, new or persistent challenges, and future directions of precision medicine for genetic epilepsies, among other things. The article states that though current medical therapy for most epilepsies remains imprecise, the epilepsy community is ready to make big steps forward in precision therapy tailored to a person’s specific genetic epilepsy because of increased access to genetic testing and counseling and advances in the ability to diagnose genetic epilepsies. The authors conclude that the future of precision medicine for genetic epilepsy looks bright if progress in this area continues in a strategic and coordinated manner.

According to data from an observational cohort study, US veterans with drug-resistant epilepsy have higher rates of mortality than the general population, suggesting a critical need for appropriate management of epilepsy in this population. The findings showed that lower mortality was associated with increased utilization of medical care, especially when utilizing a Veterans Affairs Epilepsy Center of Excellence compared to a neurology clinic alone. The study authors noted that the higher mortality risk might be lowered by appropriate referrals for comprehensive evaluation, adequate diagnostic testing, and optimal medication management and that adequate resources should be allocated to care for this patient group.

A recent study found an increased risk among adults for epilepsy or seizures two years after COVID-19 infection. Researchers used data collected as part of a two-year retrospective cohort study to investigate the neurological and psychiatric impact of SARS-CoV-2 infections. The researchers discovered that participants who had been infected with the Delta COVID-19 variant had an increased risk for epilepsy or seizures (amongst other risks) when compared to participants who had been infected with the Alpha variant. They also found that while the death rate decreased after the emergence of the Omicron variant, the virus still carried about the same risks for psychiatric or neurological problems, including epilepsy or seizures, compared to the Delta variant. The authors note that these findings emphasize there is a need for further research into the long-term impact of COVID-19.

Epilepsy can have a variety of causes, including genetic variants in a family of proteins that regulate potassium ions in the brain. A research team is examining the mechanisms behind the function and dysfunction of two of these proteins, the potassium ion channels KCNQ2 and KCNQ3, as well as their interactions with an antiseizure medication, to develop a new strategy to treat epilepsy. The team identified a set of mutations in these ion channels associated with early infantile epileptic encephalopathy, a severe form of childhood epilepsy, that specifically disrupts the function of these channels. The researchers took advantage of the antiseizure drug retigabine, given its mechanism of action on neuronal KCNQ channels, and demonstrated that the function of these mutated KCNQ channels can be restored. Their studies suggest that targeting the function of KCNQ channels may be an effective strategy for developing more effective therapies for epilepsy.

An artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to detect subtle brain abnormalities that cause epileptic seizures has been developed. The abnormalities, known as focal cortical dysplasias (FCDs), can often be treated with surgery but are difficult to visualize on an MRI. The new algorithm is expected to give physicians greater confidence in identifying FCDs in patients with epilepsy. To develop the algorithm, the team quantified features of the brain cortex—such as thickness and folding—in more than 1,000 patient MRI scans from 22 epilepsy centers around the world. They then trained the algorithm on examples labeled by expert radiologists as either being healthy or having FCD. The study’s authors state that the algorithm automatically learns to detect lesions from thousands of MRI scans of patients and can reliably detect lesions of different types, shapes, and sizes. The algorithm can even detect many of those lesions that were previously missed by radiologists. Ultimately, the team would like this AI algorithm to help doctors confidently identify FCDs, and then use surgery to remove them, in hopes of providing a cure for epilepsy.