Pediatric Epilepsy and Epilepsy Surgery : Special Topic Issue: Developmental Neuroscience 1999, Vol. 21, No. 3-5

The main topic of this issue deals with seizures as a frequent occurrence in infancy and childhood.

The intermix of clinical and basic research papers will foster greater interaction in this field between clinical investigators and bench top specialists.

This leads to better understanding of the disease process and ways to correctly treat it. The papers included are relevant to clinicians describing cognitive and neuroimaging alterations in children with epilepsy, and to basic researchers on electrophysiologic and pathologic abnormalities of epileptogenic cortex.

Pre- and post-surgery cognitive and communication problems in children with seizures are described.

Neuroimaging studies relate structural and/or functional changes to clinical-pathologic syndromes, such as temporal lobe epilepsy or Rasmussens encephalitis.

For pediatric epilepsy surgery, the primary clinical questions have centered around whether seizures have adverse effects on the developing brain that justify the surgical risks.

Clinical-pathologic papers detail the electrophysiologic and/or anatomic abnormalities in the neocortex of hippocampus of children with symptomatic pathologic substrates, like cortical dysplasia.

This issue aims at promoting coordinated efforts of clinical investigators and basic scientists in order to understand these diseases and care for children with epilepsy.