United States: Some patients with difficult-to-treat epilepsy may improve if medical professionals focus on a brain area recently connected to the condition, according to a new study.
The researchers report, published on April 17 in the journal Nature Medicine, that seizures declined by almost 83% after a patient underwent surgery that erased all of the Fasciola cinereum in a previously overlooked region of the hippocampus.
This is ultimately good, as if a patient was having one to two seizures a month, now he is having a seizure every three months or so, as reported by HealthDay.The people with drug-resistant epilepsy might need the Fasciola cinereum treated alongside other brain regions that are typically targeted, the experts said.
Unveiling the Fasciola Cinereum’s Impact
“The hippocampus is the best studied part of the brain by far, but there is shockingly little known about the fasciola cinereum,” said senior researcher Ivan Soltesz, a professor of neurosurgery and neurosciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.
In the background notes the researchers said behind the curtain that the standard of care for epilepsy when drugs fail to work is surgery. In order to remove the structures that are causing the seizures, surgeons first use electrode implants to identify the affected regions. They can then perform surgery or use a laser to burn away the affected areas, a procedure known as ablation.
Just because the amygdala and hippocampus are available on both sides of the human brain, people can still form memories following the procedure and have minimum side effects.
Unlocking New Treatment Avenues
Researchers discovered that even though brain procedures aimed at regions such as the amygdala and hippocampus frequently maintain memory and have few side effects, they still don’t work for one-third of patients. To comprehend why, they employed electrodes to observe brain activity during seizures.
They found that seizures could be related to a little-known brain region called the fasciola cinereum, which is situated deep within the brain. Studies conducted on both people and animals have validated this discovery, indicating that focusing on this region may help treat epileptic patients whose seizures are not controlled by conventional methods, as reported by HealthDay.
The patient’s seizures were decreased by 83% with a follow-up laser operation; however, further surgeries could need different methods because of the anatomy of the hippocampal region. It is also possible to target the fasciola cinereum in people who have seizures on both sides of the brain. Finding these patients may open up therapy possibilities beyond the conventional paradigm, providing promise for improved epilepsy care.