Current Topics in Epilepsy

Human epilepsies, by definition, are recurrent, self-sustained, paroxysmal disorders of brain function characterised by excessive firing of cerebral neurones. The underlying biochemical and morphological disturbances in the brain which are responsible for epilepsy are not clearly understood except that they appear to be diverse and hence the immediate difficulty in advancing a common mechanism for these disorders. Most probably they are different diseases but the clinical manifestations of these are similar. This view would certainly be compatible with the complex nature of neuronal control mechanisms both at the cellular and organisational level. In this article there will be a stress on possible biochemical disorders both in humans and in experimental epilepsies, the drug treatment of these, and an evaluation of the clinical relevance of experimental animal models