NINDS Public Crowdsourcing Community Transformative Research Priorities for the Epilepsies

Some of the greatest progress right now in precision therapies for genetic epilepsies is the result of parents of children with genetic epilepsies forming nonprofit organizations. These non-profits then raise funds for medical research. These organizations understand the urgency of the situation and they drive progress by being laser-focused on a specific genetic epilepsy. These genetic epilepsies are arguably among the... more »

Precision diagnosis – right now there are a large number of people with epilepsy with an unknown cause. This means that our understanding of the phenotypes that we currently associate with a specific etiology (such as genetic) may be skewed to only the most severe phenotypes, which are often also the most rare, and therefore understudied. A grand challenge is to develop ways to rapidly diagnose an epilepsy etiology—whether... more »

This priority will transform epilepsy research by integrating modern science into modern care for patients with epilepsy.

For example, a patient with as yet unexplained non-acquired epilepsy should be considered to have genetic epilepsy until proven otherwise and appropriately evaluated. If the first line of evaluation is unrevealing he or she should have an iterative re-analysis of cause in tandem with empiric therapy.... more »