Babies who have suffered a seizure triggered by a high fever might be predisposed to epilepsy later in life, a study shows.
Researcher Ivan Soltesz and colleagues at the University of California Irvine, writing in the journal Nature Medicine, say that studies on rats showed that febrile seizures alter the neurons of a portion of the brain called the hippocampus, which is involved in short-term memory and learning.
Somehow, the seizures cause higher levels of the neurotransmitter, or message-carrying chemical GABA, although members of Soltesz’s team said they were not sure how.
“It is the seizures, potentially augmented by hyperthermia [high body temperature], that cause long-term alterations in neuronal excitability,” they write.
But Dr. Orrin Devinsky, director of the New York University-Mount Sinai Epilepsy Center, said yesterday that other “very good, large studies on humans” counter the Soltesz study.
“If the febrile convulsions are prolonged or complicated – if one side of the body is involved or left weakened after the seizure – then those patients have a higher risk of later epilepsy,” he said. “[But] we don’t think most people suffer long-term consequences.”