Together with spontaneous, recurrent seizures, patients with epilepsies often present a variety of psychiatric comorbidities, such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, autism, and attention deficits. Psychiatric symptoms frequently outweigh the burden of seizures themselves, and comorbidity relationships are as diverse as their physiological mechanisms, making this a still-promising field both for therapeutic developments and basic research.
In this Research Topic, we welcome clinical and basic research papers addressing outstanding questions on the many links between epilepsies and their psychiatric comorbidities, including:
• Are different psychiatric symptoms explained by different pathophysiological bases? Is a given set of psychiatric symptoms pathophysiologically equivalent between patients with or without epilepsies?
• Can the classification of psychiatric disorders gain from distinguishing between the presence and absence of epilepsies? Can treatments be better tailored based on such gain?
• Are functional connectivity tools (e.g., fMRI, EEG) able to highlight the neuronal network specificities of different psychiatric comorbidities? Can a more holistic functional knowledge be applied against the pitfalls of elusive seizure types, such as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures?
• Recent studies have indicated the importance of epigenetic changes in psychiatric disorders: is this also true for the psychiatric comorbidities of epilepsies?
• Animal models for the study of psychiatric comorbidities in epilepsies: what is the current status of the field, and what are the next steps and insights? A myriad of experimental variations such as animal strains, age, and seizure induction methods can make comparisons across studies difficult. How can laboratories approach the many combinations of modeled symptoms more systematically?
We welcome all forms of submissions: Original Research Articles, Review Articles, Method Articles, Clinical Trials, Case Reports, Mini Review Articles, Code, Book Reviews, General Commentaries, Perspectives, Hypotheses & Theories.
Together with spontaneous, recurrent seizures, patients with epilepsies often present a variety of psychiatric comorbidities, such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, autism, and attention deficits. Psychiatric symptoms frequently outweigh the burden of seizures themselves, and comorbidity relationships are as diverse as their physiological mechanisms, making this a still-promising field both for therapeutic developments and basic research.
In this Research Topic, we welcome clinical and basic research papers addressing outstanding questions on the many links between epilepsies and their psychiatric comorbidities, including:
• Are different psychiatric symptoms explained by different pathophysiological bases? Is a given set of psychiatric symptoms pathophysiologically equivalent between patients with or without epilepsies?
• Can the classification of psychiatric disorders gain from distinguishing between the presence and absence of epilepsies? Can treatments be better tailored based on such gain?
• Are functional connectivity tools (e.g., fMRI, EEG) able to highlight the neuronal network specificities of different psychiatric comorbidities? Can a more holistic functional knowledge be applied against the pitfalls of elusive seizure types, such as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures?
• Recent studies have indicated the importance of epigenetic changes in psychiatric disorders: is this also true for the psychiatric comorbidities of epilepsies?
• Animal models for the study of psychiatric comorbidities in epilepsies: what is the current status of the field, and what are the next steps and insights? A myriad of experimental variations such as animal strains, age, and seizure induction methods can make comparisons across studies difficult. How can laboratories approach the many combinations of modeled symptoms more systematically?
We welcome all forms of submissions: Original Research Articles, Review Articles, Method Articles, Clinical Trials, Case Reports, Mini Review Articles, Code, Book Reviews, General Commentaries, Perspectives, Hypotheses & Theories.