ABSTRACT
While we have long sought treatments that fall under the rubric of antiepileptic (or anticonvulsant), our attention to the concept of antiepileptogenesis is relatively recent. In large measure, the neglect has been due to a general lack of understanding about the processes of epileptogenesis, and thus a practical inability to develop measures that would be effective antiepileptogenic treatments. Why, now, should we shift our attention to epileptogenesis-the processes by which a relatively “normal” brain becomes capable of generating spontaneous, repeated seizures-i.e., becomes epileptic? The rationale lies in our current, more ambitious clinical goals-to utilize treatments that will not only prevent seizure occurrence, but produce a “cure”—so that the individual being treated no longer has an epileptic condition. As is the case for many medical conditions, the most effect treatment/cure may lie in prevention. We as “epileptologists” would really like to put ourselves out of business by developing procedures that stop the epileptogenic process before it becomes a chronic disease state. Antiepileptogenesis is thus not just a conceptual endpoint, but rather a real and important clinical goal.
