title: Development of epilepsy after ischaemic stroke.
abstract: For about 30% of patients with epilepsy the cause is unknown. Even in patients with a known risk factor for epilepsy, such as ischaemic stroke, only a subpopulation of patients develops epilepsy. Factors that contribute to the risk for epileptogenesis in a given individual generally remain unknown. Studies in the past decade on epilepsy in patients with ischaemic stroke suggest that, in addition to the primary ischaemic injury, existing difficult-to-detect microscale changes in blood vessels and white matter present as epileptogenic pathologies. Injury severity, location and type of pathological changes, genetic factors, and pre-injury and post-injury exposure to non-genetic factors (ie, the exposome) can divide patients with ischaemic stroke into different endophenotypes with a variable risk for epileptogenesis. These data provide guidance for animal modelling of post-stroke epilepsy, and for laboratory experiments to explore with increased specificity the molecular 'mechanisms, biomarkers, and treatment targets of post-stroke epilepsy in different circumstances, with the aim of modifying epileptogenesis after ischaemic stroke in individual patients without compromising recovery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, A. I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland. Electronic address: asla.pitkanen@uef.fi.
authors.forename: Asla
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pitkänen
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Hyvinkää Hospital, Hyvinkää, Finland.
authors.forename: Reina
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Roivainen
authors.affiliation: The Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Katarzyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lukasiuk
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000150:complications*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications*