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Epilepsy Essay

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Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a very common neurological disorder. Some reports estimate that five in one-thousand people suffer from this problem. Throughout history, people with epilepsy have been shunned or considered inferior. Even today, ignorance leads many people to treat the epileptic as "abnormal" or "retarded". Although the etiology of epilepsy is still not fully understood, it is quite treatable due to advances in modern medicine.

Epilepsy is characterized by uncontrolled excessive activity of either a part of, or all of the central nervous system. A person who is predisposed to epilepsy has attacks when the basal level of excitability of the nervous system rises above a certain critical threshold. As long as the degree of …show more content…

During these seizures, high-voltage, synchronous discharges occur over the entire cortex. Furthermore, the same type of discharge occurs on both sides of the brain at the same time, showing that the abnormal neuronal circuitry responsible for the attack strongly involves the basal regions of the brain that drive the cortex. In humans, grand mal attacks can be initiated by administering neuronal stimulants, such as the drug Metrazol, or they can be caused by insulin hypoglycemia or by the passage of alternating electrical current directly through the brain. Electrical recordings from the thalamus and also from the reticular formation of the brain stem during the grand mal attack show typical high-voltage activity in both of these areas similar to that recorded from the cerebral cortex. Presumably, therefore, a grand mal attack is caused by abnormal activation in the lower parts of the brain activating system itself.

Most persons who have grand mal attacks have a hereditary predisposition to epilepsy. In such persons, some of the factors that can increase the excitability of the abnormal "epileptogenic" circuitry enough to precipitate attacks; are strong emotional stimuli, alkalosis caused by hyperventilation, drugs, fever, and loud noises or flashing lights. Even in persons not genetically predisposed, traumatic lesions in almost any part of the brain can cause excess excitability of local brain areas and these too, can elicit grand mal seizures. The cause of

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