[Neuropathology of refractory epilepsy: the structural basis and mechanisms of epileptogenesis]

Abstract

In recent years, the expansion of surgical treatment of patients with refractory epilepsy brought unique opportunity to analyse resected epileptic brain tissue and to define the morphological and molecular basis of this heterogeneous disease. The most common clinicopathological entities identified in epilepsy surgical brain specimens are hippocampal sclerosis, malformations of cortical development, glioneuronal tumors, vascular malformations, glial scarring or inflammation. In addition to the diagnostics and classification of the lesions, the text provides a summary of current knowledge about the pathogenesis and mechanisms, by which they contribute to the genesis and spread of epilepsy.