Do seizures damage the brain? The epidemiological evidence

The National Collaborative Perinatal Project (NCPP) which enrolled approximately 54 000 pregnant American women between 1959 and 1966 and followed up their children until 7 years of age. 1-3 The system of medical records linkage of the Rochester Epidemiology Project which was used to identify residents of Rochester, Minnesota, USA, who had seizures. 4-6 The Child Health and Education Study (CHES), a birth cohort study, which enrolled over 16 000 neonatal survivors born in the United Kingdom in one week in April 1970 and followed them for 10 years. 7-9 Outcome after febrile convulsions THE CONTROVERSY In 1971 Taylor and Ounsted 10 wrote: "We think that the convulsive hypoxia sustained during prolonged febrile convulsions causes the death of vulnerable neurones in the cerebellum, the thalamus, and in mesial temporal structures." Eventually sleep electroencephalography indicated that the site of seizure onset was in the left temporal lobe, which corresponded with the MRI findings.\n The other presented with an illness diagnosed as an encephalitis and died several years later of bronchopneumonia. [...]neither death was due to the status epilepticus.