A new Cedars-Sinai study reveals how memory and abnormal brain activity are linked in patients with epilepsy who often report problems with memory. The data show that abnormal electrical pulses from specific brain cells in these patients are associated with a temporary kind of memory disruption called transient cognitive impairment.
Understanding this process has the potential to lead to improvements in treating epilepsy patients, as well as contribute to knowledge of how memory works.
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by abnormal brain activity that can cause seizures. It affects about 3.4 million Americans, or 1% of the population, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"To our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the actual mechanism of transient cognitive impairment in epilepsy," said Ueli Rutishauser, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai. He was senior author of the study, published online in the journal JNeurosci.
Read more at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay