The Epilepsy Genetics Group has been studying the inheritance of seizures in families and twins for over a decade. By mid-2007 approximately 8000 people have participated in our research studies.

Although epilepsy can be acquired in some people (through a bad head injury for example), there is strong evidence that genetics may cause or contribute to many types of epilepsy. For example it is more common for identical twins to both experience seizures than for non-identical twins, and there is often a family history of epilepsy or seizures in patients with certain types of epilepsy.

By 2006 there were twelve known "epilepsy genes", and our group is proud to have been involved in the identification of eight of these. However, despite these findings, relatively little is known about the genetic causes of epilepsy in most people. The genes that have been identified so far either cause very rare types of epilepsy or are rare causes of the more common types of epilepsy. In addition, we believe that the common genetic epilepsies are caused by a number of genes acting together, making it much harder to identify each individual gene.

• Investigación
• Medicina