Epilepsy: definition, causes, diagnosis and treatment

What is epilepsy and how can this neuropathology be treated?

Of all the neurological diseases that can affect the human brain, few are as relevant as epilepsy. epilepsy.

It is a disorder that affects about 50 million people worldwide (according to WHO data). (according to WHO data), is chronic and is also one of the brain diseases that causes the highest number of deaths. On the other hand, after strokes and dementia, epilepsy is the most common brain disease.

For this reason, clinical psychology, neuroscience and psychiatry are making great efforts to understand what epilepsy is and how it acts.

What is epilepsy?

The term epilepsy is used to designate a disorder in which imbalances in the functioning of the brain lead to so-called epileptic seizures.. These crises are episodes in which large groups of neurons begin to emit electrical discharges abnormally, causing the person to lose control of their actions and part or all of consciousness.

Episodes of this type can last seconds or minutes, and appear unexpectedly regardless of the context in which the person is. Therefore, what triggers these seizures what triggers these crises has more to do with the internal dynamics of the functioning of the nervous system than with what is going on around the person, even though one thing cannot be the same.although one cannot be totally separated from the other.

Seizures in epileptic seizures

In most cases, during epileptic seizures the person not only loses control over what he/she is doing, but also suffers seizures, i.e., he/she many muscles in your body begin to contract and distend at the same time and repeatedly, causing tremors..

However, this is neither a defining symptom of epilepsy in all its forms (because it can also occur without seizures) nor is it only related to epilepsy, as it is possible to experience a seizure episode without having epilepsy.

• To learn more about what happens in the brain when you experience seizures, you can read this article

Causes of this disorder

The causes of epilepsy are only known at a relatively superficial level.That is, it is only known that they occur when a large number of neurons start firing signals at the same time and abnormally, although the details of the biochemical processes that trigger this type of process are unknown.

That is why, more than knowing why epileptic seizures occur, we know the how of them, which serves to describe them without going into detail. Among the factors that appear to be associated with the onset of epilepsy are:

• Brain tumors.
• Cranioencephalic traumas that leave sequelae.
• Cardiovascular accidents that damage parts of the brain.
• Congenital or genetic brain malformations.
• Meningitis or encephalitis.

These are, therefore, problems that affect an individual brain, and not contagious diseases, which means that epilepsy cannot spread or be spread.

In addition, when considering the causes of epilepsy, it should be noted that individual differences play a very important role in epilepsy, as each brain is unique.because each brain is unique. Similarly, there is also great variability in the forms that epilepsy can take, a fact that gives rise to the debate as to whether, rather than there being one disease called epilepsy, there are several types of epilepsy with little relation to each other.

How is epilepsy diagnosed?

Epilepsy is caused by an abnormal activation pattern of groups of neurons, and therefore, in order to diagnose it, it is necessary to see precisely how the person's brain works in real time. To achieve this, specialists in the field of neurology will use technologies for reading brain activity (such as encephalography or EEG) to see how certain parts of the brain are activated.

As even when experiencing epilepsy, brain activity can be apparently normal at times when seizures are not occurring, In many cases it will be necessary to wear a device for a few days that will send signals about the neuronal activation patterns it detects..

In addition to this, the health examination may include many other tests, such as lumbar puncture or Blood and urine tests, depending on each case.

Possible treatments

As epilepsy is a neurological disease that affects all areas of a person's life, it is very common for the treatments used against it to be invasive.. In addition to psychotherapeutic care, treatments based on psychotropic drugs and other medications are often used.

On many occasions, after testing the efficacy of anticonvulsants, surgery may be recommended to isolate or destroy the area of the brain from which the seizures are triggered, or to introduce a device called a Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) into the brain to reduce the frequency of seizure occurrence.

It should be kept in mind, however, that in many cases epileptic seizures will never disappear completely, and only the intensity of the seizures can be reduced.The intensity and frequency of epileptic seizures can only be reduced.