Epilepsy and neurodegeneration

Epilepsy is a neurological condition that impacts close to 65 million people around the world, thus exhibiting a substantial global disease burden. Epilepsy is characterized by the brain’s ability to produce transient synchronous neuronal activity termed seizures. Neurodegeneration is typically triggered when neurons gradually lose their functions, thus ultimately leading to neurological conditions. Neurodegeneration appears to largely be multifactorial, but certain factors like aging, genetic, and environmental have been proven to play a crucial role. Increasing evidences have also deemed epilepsy as a progressive condition linked with cognitive deficits and aggravation of other comorbidities. However, a clear etiological connection between neurodegeneration and epileptic seizures remains undefined. Nevertheless, it has been reported that there seem to be different neurodegenerative pathways like tau, amyloid, neuroinflammation, and AMPA receptors that trigger cell death and neurogenesis, thus contributing to the link between neurodegenerative diseases and development of epileptic seizures. Additionally, neurodegeneration within epileptogenic regions could ultimately cause neuroinflammation and several other changes which may promote a normal brain to an epileptic brain. Nevertheless, it has been reported that studies investigating these neurodegenerative mechanisms are protective against epileptogenesis succeeding an acquired brain insult and could in turn serve as a promising target for novel therapies to be disease-modifying therapies for epilepsy patients.