Scientist raises hope of epilepsy breakthrough

GROUNDBREAKING genetic research by an Irish neuroscientist may hold the key to a new treatment to reduce brain injury associated with epilepsy.

Dr David Henshall, a senior lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), presented key findings on how the brain responds to seizures at the first Neuroscience Ireland meeting which is being held in University College Cork.

Around 35,000 people in Ireland suffer from epilepsy, and while seizures can be controlled with drugs, some continue to have seizures that can damage the brain.

Dr Henshall has been examining the genes that cause the cell death process within parts of the brain at risk of damage during a seizure. “When these genes are knocked out, we can influence the harmful effect of the seizure,” he said.

He has identified one of the genes, called Bcl-W that seems to protect brain cells from damage and has gone on to look at brain samples from patients with epilepsy.

Dr Henshall identified the gene in brain tissue removed during neurosurgery from patients whose epilepsy does not respond to drugs.

“We think that the gene is the brain’s natural response to seizure activity and may be trying to protect itself. We are now going to look for the gene in a much larger epilepsy population.”

Dr Henshall, together with Dr Norman Delanty, a consultant neurologist and epileptologist at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, are to look at more than 1,000 DNA samples to see if there is a mutation problem.

“We hope this approach will lead us to new therapeutic targets to reduce brain injury and prevent seizures in patients with epilepsy,” he said.

“We know that certain seizures can harm the brain so neuro-protective treatments are an attractive goal if we can understand the cell death process,” he said yesterday.