ABSTRACT
Epileptic seizures are manifestations of epilepsy, a common dynamical disorder second only to stroke and Alzheimer’s disease among neurological disorders. Of the world’s 50 million people with epilepsy, about one-third have seizures that are not controlled by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) (Engel et al. 2007). One of the most disabling aspects of epilepsy is the seemingly unpredictable nature of seizures. If seizures cannot be controlled, the patient experiences major limitations in family, social, educational, and vocational activities. In addition, status epilepticus (SE), a life-threatening condition in which seizure activity occurs continuously, is often successfully treated only with extreme intervention (Alldredge et al. 2007; Treiman and Walker 2006). Until recently, the general belief in the medical community was that epileptic seizures could not be anticipated. Seizures were assumed to be abrupt transitions that occurred randomly over time. However, theories based on reports from clinical practice and scienti–c intuition, like the “reservoir theory” postulated by Lennox, have pointed to the possibility of seizure predictability (Lennox 1946). Various feelings of auras (patients’ reports of sensations of an upcoming seizure) also are common in the medical literature.
