Children with a rather mysterious movement disorder can have hundreds of attacks every day in which they inexplicably make sudden movements or sudden changes in the speed of their movements. New evidence reported in an early online publication from the January 2012 inaugural issue of Cell Reports, the first open-access journal of Cell Press, provides an answer for them. Contrary to expectations, the trouble stems from a defective version of a little-known gene that is important for communication from one neuron to the next.

The findings might lead to new strategies for treating a variety of movement disorders, the researchers say.

A combination of two common drugs, lamotrigine and valproate, is more effective in treating difficult-to control epilepsy than other anti-epileptic regimens, according to a University of Washington report published online this week in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

More than 3 million Americans have epilepsy, and about one million of these have a difficult-to-treat form.

In a large-scale, retrospective study of a population of patients with very difficult-to-control epilepsy, researchers discovered that only the lamotrigine/valproate treatment regimen, out of the 32 drug combinations studied, significantly decreased seizure frequency in this group.

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) have developed a new method for detailed analyses of electrical activity in the brain. The method, recently published in Neuron, can help doctors and researcher to better interpret brain cell signals.

In turn, this may lead to considerable steps forward in terms of interpreting for example EEG measurements, making diagnoses and treatment of various brain illnesses.

Brain stimulation, already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and essential tremor, has now been shown to offer significant relief to patients with intractable seizures for whom drugs and other treatments have not worked.

This is the major finding of a first-of-its-kind study of responsive electric brain stimulation in adults with "medically refractory," or hard to treat, epilepsy.

The NeuroPace Responsive Neurostimulation (RNS) System consists of a miniaturized, implanted computer which can detect seizures from electrodes implanted into or on the surface of the brain and deliver an electrical pulse to stop them.

Nicolas G. Bazan, MD, Ph.D, Boyd Professor and Director of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, and David Stark, an MD/Ph.D student working in his lab, have discovered how a key chemical neurotransmitter that interacts with two receptors in the brain promotes either normal function or a disease process - determining whether brain cells live or die. The work is published and highlighted in the September 28, 2011 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Zinc has been found to play a critical role in regulating communication between cells in the brain, possibly governing the formation of memories and controlling the occurrence of epileptic seizures.

A collaborative project between Duke University Medical Center researchers and chemists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been able to watch zinc in action as it regulates communication between neurons in the hippocampus, where learning and memory processes occur - and where disrupted communication may contribute to epilepsy.

A team of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has succeeded in creating what amounts to a GPS system for locating and tracking a vital class of brain cells that until now has eluded comprehensive identification, particularly in living animals.

The cells in question are the class of neurons that release the neurotransmitter called GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid). GABA neurons function to inhibit or dial down the intensity of nerve signals propagated by excitatory neurons, which are triggered by neurotransmitters such as glutamate.

Columbia Engineering researchers have developed a new technique to reach neurons through the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and deliver drugs safely and noninvasively. Up until now, scientists have thought that long ultrasound pulses, which can inflict collateral damage, were required. But in this new study, the Columbia Engineering team show that extremely short pulses of ultrasound waves can open the blood-brain barrier - with the added advantages of safety and uniform molecular delivery - and that the molecule injected systemically could reach and highlight the targeted neurons noninvasively.

Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures may go undiagnosed for much longer in veterans compared to civilians, according to a new study published in the September 6, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This type of seizure is different from seizures related to epilepsy and is thought to have a psychological origin.