Sample Epilepsy Research Papers

Seizure disorders, according to the Mayo Clinic (2015), affect approximately 1 in 26 people in the United States. Persistent, or chronic, seizures result from a condition called epilepsy, a neurological disorder of the central nervous system. It can affect anyone regardless of age, but is more common during early childhood and after age 60. Given the number of people that seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, affect, it becomes helpful to gain a foundational understanding of the disease, including some of the causes, symptoms, and treatments available.

A two year old, named Jaqie Angel Warrior had been suffering from several types of seizures ever since she was five months old. Doctors had tried many medications to control her seizures, such as klonopin , and depakote; but all failed to stop these thousands of seizures, resulting in terrible side effects. Jaqie’s mother, Brittany had been researching other potential cures, when she came across cannabis oil. Soon after, they moved to a motel in Colorado, and began using high-CBD oil, which also contains high levels of THC. Levels higher than any other states CBD-only bill allows. Since they began using the cannabis oil, Jaqie’s seizures have reduced by 90%, and Brittany ceased use of any dangerous pharmaceuticals. (Patient Success)

A new marijuana-derived drug may treat epileptic children, without the high. Within clinical studies, now researchers are taking statistical data to test 150 children that haven't been helped by standard seizure medications. If Epidiolex proves itself, it will supply additional evidence that marijuana may serve as a potential cornucopia of medical leads to be used for future drug development.

The article “Marijuana Stops Child’s Severe Seizures” by Saundra Young reveals an unusual solution to a child’s illness. Starting from a young age, Charlotte Figi started getting frequent seizures. The seizures lasted from two to four hours and often required Charlotte to be hospitalized. After doing several tests, the doctors were not able to find the exact cause for Charlotte’s seizures. They eventually diagnosed Charlotte with Dravet Syndrome. Following the diagnosis, the doctors decided to start treatment which proved to be unsuccessful. The next step they took was to implement a ketogenic diet which worked for two years with some side effects. Finally, Charlotte’s parents decided to try using medical marijuana that has low THC levels. The medical marijuana used proved to be successful in reducing Charlotte’s seizures drastically.

Seizures that are not caused by epilepsy are called non-epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures are caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Non-epileptic seizures may be caused by:

Epilepsy Research Paper People most often associate violent twitching, falling to the floor and drooling with epilepsy. However the described event is only one kind of an epileptic seizure, which is called a tonic-clonic seizure. There are many other kinds of seizures, and each has different sets of signs and symptoms. During generalized seizures the whole brain is affected and the initial symptom is loss of consciousness. This category includes such seizures as absence seizure, myoclonic seizure, and atonic attack.

As explained in my essay, my brother’s condition did truly take a toll on my parents and myself in our daily life. My brother’s condition was never predictable, which made it much more difficult of a situation to deal with. There were times where he would not have a seizure for a few days. Yet, on other days, he would have about ten seizures a night. I remember clearly how somedays I had to stay home rather going to school just incase we had to take my brother to the hospital. Being the only English speaker in my family, I had to be present in such situations. I remember sitting on the side of his bed with my mother next to me, just waiting for him fall asleep so we could get some rest ourselves. There were times where I would go to school without getting much rest the night

Charlotte Figi, an eight-year-old girl from Colorado with Dravet syndrome, a rare and debilitating form of epilepsy, came into the public eye in 2013 when news broke that medical marijuana was able to do what other drugs could not: dramatically reduce her seizures. Now, new scientific research provides evidence that cannabis may be an effective treatment for a third of epilepsy patients who, like Charlotte, have a treatment-resistant form of the disease.

Medical marijuana can control epilepsy. A study that was conducted by Robert J. DeLorenzo in 2003 showed that cannabinoids, such as THC, control seizures by binding to brain cells that control excitability and regulate relaxation.

The use of medical marijuana to treat children with Epilepsy wasn’t a thought, at least until Charlotte Figi. The story of Charlotte Figi has shined a light and opened the door for many children with epilepsy. To sum it up, Charlotte had Dravet Syndrome and her seizures declined dramatically after she began taking a product called “Charlotte’s Web” extracted from marijuana. It is said that after Charlotte’s story many families who have a child with epilepsy have moved to Colorado in order to get “Charlotte’s Web”. Many kids like Charlotte would go through the day and have at least five or more seizures. Not all families can afford to pack up their home and move to Colorado to get their kids the treatment they need. If marijuana was legal everywhere in

Amidst all of the country’s controversy surrounding this plant, there are no doubts about its medical potential. One of these medical areas is in treating seizure disorders. There are three million people in the United States alone that have epilepsy and one-third of those have treatment-resistant seizures (Young). The cannabinoids found in marijuana seem to help many of these people. The Epilepsy Foundation is a big supporter of medical marijuana.

Partial seizures are seizures that are produced by small impulses on a certain area of the brain. The partial seizures are dived into many other categories that are simple, complex, and partial seizure with secondary generalization. In simple seizures it includes: simple motor, simple sensory, and simple psychological. For motor the symptoms are muscle stiffening and making movements like jerking. In sensory the symptoms involve the five senses that each every one of us have which are smell, hear, taste, touch, and vision. Psychological symptoms involve with the memory. Complex partial seizures is when the patient seems to be out of it or just in space. The symptoms that they may get are movements that are coordinated and could be at times

EEG measures the electrical activity of the brain by placing multiple electrodes on the scalp. All the electrodes work instantaneously and produce data in the form of multi-channel time series in real time. These sensors can pick up about thousand data points every second. The electrical activity produced by a brain neuron is too small to be recorded by EEG [11]. An EEG electrode records from a combination of many concentrated neurons. Each EEG channel is calculated by taking the difference between recordings of two electrodes.

Charlotte’s epilepsy is not the only condition for which medical marijuana can be used. First, the website ProCon.org states that medical marijuana is useful for sufferers of Alzheimer’s Disease, anorexia, AIDS, cancer, Crohn’s Disease, and many others (For Which Symptoms, para. 1, procon.org). Studies show that drugs, such as cocaine, and alcohol inhibit the growth of new brain cells. However, research conducted at Scripps Research in San Diego demonstrates that marijuana encourages neural growth. THC, one of the primary beneficial compounds found in cannabis, eases pain, minimizes

A little girl in Colorado started having seizures when she was three months old. It turned out that she had a genetic problem that caused seizures. Traditional drugs used to prevent them were not helping. She was getting worse and experiencing up to 300 seizures a week! By age five, she could no longer walk or talk and was failing both physically and mentally. Through a stroke of luck, her parents were told that she might benefit from marijuana. After much difficulty they were finally able to get it for her in oil form. After taking the medical marijuana for just one day, the seizures basically stopped. Now she only experiences one to two seizures a month! She was on the brink of dying and now she is living a relatively healthy normal life. Medical marijuana literally saved this little girl’s life. (Gupta).