ABSTRACT
The sudden and apparently unpredictable nature of seizures is one of the most disabling aspects of the disease epilepsy. A method of predicting the occurrence of seizures from the electroencephalogram (EEG) of epilepsy patients would open new therapeutic possibilities. Since the 1970s, investigations on the predictability of seizures have advanced from preliminary descriptions of seizure precursors to controlled studies applying prediction algorithms to continuous multiday EEG recordings. While most of the studies published in the 1990s and around the turn of the millennium yielded rather promising results, more recent evaluations could not reproduce these optimistic –ndings. The current literature is at best inconclusive as to whether seizures are predictable by prospective algorithms.
