Partnership for Pediatric Epilepsy Research

Partnership for Pediatric Epilepsy Research The Partnership for Pediatric Epilepsy Research is a consortium of epilepsy-related organizations and individuals committed to support research into the causes, treatment and eventual cure of childhood epilepsies.

Current members include the American Epilepsy Society, the Epilepsy Foundation and Parents Against Childhood Epilepsy (P.A.C.E.).

The deadline for application submission is March 1 for funding to begin July 1. In our current funding cycle, we awarded three grants that begin July 1, 2006.

Partnership for Pediatric Epilepsy Research Grants for FY2006

Madison Berl, Ph.D. - Children's National Medical Center

“Working memory in children with epilepsy as assessed by functional imaging and neuropsychological studies”

Children with epilepsy often experience behavioral and cognitive difficulties. One area of difficulty is executive functioning which is a set of skills important for efficient task performance. This study characterizes the neural network of one aspect of executive functioning, namely working memory, and its impact on language in children with epilepsy using functional imaging and neuropsychological measures.

Linda K. Friedman, Ph.D. - New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYCOM) of New York Institute of Technology

“Age-dependent effects of seizures and antiepileptics on AMPA and mGluR receptors”

There is a critical lack of knowledge concerning what status epilepticus does to the developing brain. We question whether maturational changes in glutamate receptors occur after limbic seizures and whether antiepileptic treatment may alter these receptors in the presence or absence of seizures. Our questions are critical to pediatric epilepsy research because if seizures commence early in life, then over- or under-expression of glutamate receptors is either regulated in a cell- or age-specific manner. Thus, the age, timing of insults and type of antiepileptic drug administered appear critical to clinical outcomes.

Deanna S. Smith, Ph.D. — University of South Carolina

"Examining a post-developmental role for Lis1 in pediatric epilepsy"

Mutations in Lis1 inhibit events that occur during embryonic brain development and result in classical lissencephaly syndromes (smooth brain). Lis1 is also present in brain cells after birth and into adulthood. Defective Lis1 in older nerve cells may contribute to the increasingly severe seizures experienced by children with lissencephaly. This proposal will address the post-development role of Lis1 and may lead to a method to alleviate the seizures after birth.