Potassium channels in epilepsy
Grant round winners 2009 Certain sub-types of potassium channels have been found to regulate the release of glutamate from pre-synaptic membranes, and dysfunction of these has been proposed to increase [...]
Finding better treatments for epilepsy
Grant round winners 2009 The main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain is known as GABA. If too little GABA is produced, or if its receptors aren't working properly, this will fail to dampen the ac [...]
Evaluating the benefits and risks of epilepsy surgery using imaging
Grant round winners 2008 Surgery to remove a portion of the temporal lobe (situated behind the ear) is an effective way of treating temporal lobe epilepsy, the most common type of epilepsy in adults. U [...]
Understanding absence seizures
Grant round winners 2008 Absence seizures occur in many types of epilepsy but they are not well understood. In absence seizures, epileptic activity arises in the thalamus (which relays messages from ou [...]
Changes in cell structure where seizures start
Grant round winners 2008 Nerve cells send electrical signals by controlling the amounts of tiny charged particles called ions inside them, moving them in or out via pores in the cell wall called ion ch [...]
Pinpointing the gene behind childhood absence epilepsy
Grant round winners 2008 Dr Kate Everett at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, is studying the causes of childhood absence epilepsy, which affects about 1 in 20 children with epi [...]
Cognitive behaviour therapy for epilepsy
Grant round winners 2008 Many people with intractable epilepsy report that psychological factors in everyday life, for example stress levels, can affect how often they have seizures. Some people find t [...]
The first stages of a seizure
Grant round winners 2008 Understanding exactly how seizures start is important in two ways: firstly, to develop warning system for people with active epilepsy, to alert them in good time when a seizure [...]
Improving epilepsy treatment at GP level – screening for depression
Grant round winners 2008 At least one in every eight people with epilepsy also has depression. Depression contributes to poor quality of life for people with epilepsy, yet epilepsy services at all leve [...]
Are some types of epilepsy forms of autoimmune disease?
Grant round winners 2008 Antibodies are molecules made by the immune system whose purpose is to protect the body from infections. Occasionally things go wrong and the antibodies attack the body's own t [...]
How to use fMRI to find where memories are processed in the brain
Grant round winners 2008 There is currently a lot of interest worldwide into how to use brain scans to locate memory function in the brain, prior to surgery for temporal lobe epilepsy. Functional magne [...]
The role of adenosine and ATP during seizures
Grant round winners 2007 24 April 2007 Bruno Frenguelli and Nicholas Dale of the School of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, will be looking at two closely-related molecules called adenosine [...]
