There is a complex relationship between seizures and encephalopathy. Seizures alone without any underlying neurologic or medical illness can be the sole cause of encephalopathy. Often these patients have a history of epilepsy, in which case accurate diagnosis is straightforward. Acute neurologic conditions often contribute to encephalopathy, but also increase the risk of seizures--many of which...

OBJECTIVE Balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (B-RTO) has recently been introduced as a new interventional modality to prevent fatal bleeding from solitary gastric varices. A large portal-systemic shunt including gastric varices also causes severe encephalopathy in some cirrhotic patients. In this study, we evaluated the effect of B-RTO as a candidate therapeutic method to trea...

BACKGROUND Public health and agricultural policy attempts to keep bovine spongiform encephalopathy out of North America using infectious disease containment policies. Inconsistencies of the infectious disease model as it applies to the spongiform encephalopathies may result in failure of these policies. METHODS Review of historical, political and scientific literature to determine the appropr...

We apply a novel gene expression network analysis to a cohort of 182 recently reported candidate Epileptic Encephalopathy genes to identify those most likely to be true Epileptic Encephalopathy genes. These candidate genes were identified as having single variants of likely pathogenic significance discovered in a large-scale massively parallel sequencing study. Candidate Epileptic Encephalopath...

Benzodiazepine receptors were studied in rats with hepatic encephalopathy due to fulminant hepatic failure induced by galactosamine. [3H]-Diazepam binding studies on brain synaptic membranes of rats with mild and severe encephalopathy show a significant increase in the number of receptors in both stages of coma. [3H]Diazepam binding to synaptic membrane preparations from rats in the mild or sev...

INTRODUCTION Hashimoto's encephalopathy is a relatively rare condition associated with an elevated concentration of circulating serum anti-thyroid antibodies, and is usually responsive to steroid therapy. However, hypothyroidism is a rare cause of pseudo-obstruction so here we present a case report of Hashimoto's encephalopathy with gut pseudo-obstruction in an undiagnosed hypothyroid patient. ...

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a complication that presents in as many as 28% of patients with cirrhosis, and reported up to ten years after the diagnosis of cirrhosis. Commonly, it is observed in patients with severe hepatic failure and is characterized by neuropsychiatric manifestations that can range in severity from a mild alteration in mental state to a coma; additionally, some neuromuscul...

Wernicke's encephalopathy is caused by thiamine deficiency, and is characterized by acute mental confusion, ataxia, and ophthalmoplegia. It is also a rare neurologic complication of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). However, because of its rare incidence, Wernicke's encephalopathy can easily be overlooked in HSCT patients, and a few misleading steps in the early stage of the disea...

Although previous studies have reported on the effectiveness of brain hypothermia therapy in childhood acute encephalopathy, additional studies in this field are necessary. In this review, we discussed brain hypothermia therapy methods for two clinical conditions for which sufficient evidences are currently available in the literature. The first condition is known as hypoxic-ischemic encephalop...

The combination of valproic acid and topiramate has been shown to increase the risk of encephalopathy.1-5 Certain authors have proposed that this combination evokes a synergistic mechanism that produces hyperammonemia, which in turn results in encephalopathy.2,6 Described here is a case of encephalopathy potentially induced by the combination of valproic acid and topiramate, in which serial ser...