Epilepsy Resources and UpdatesThe Epilepsy Benchmark goals in Area III focus on making progress in understanding and controlling seizures and related conditions as well as on developing biomarkers and new therapies that will reduce seizures and improve outcomes for individuals with epilepsy. Area III emphasizes a need to better understand the ways in which seizures start, propagate, and terminate and whether those network processes are common or unique in different forms of epilepsy. The application of that knowledge to improved seizure prediction and detection will also play a role in improving patient outcomes. Animal models of treatment-resistant epilepsy that are aligned with etiologies and clinical features of human epilepsies are especially encouraged as necessary tools to understand mechanisms and test potential therapies. Antiseizure therapies that target (either alone or in combination) novel or multiple seizure mechanisms are prioritized in this section of the Benchmarks. Area III goals also highlight validation of biomarkers of treatment response and safety risk, effective self-management, and patient-centered outcome measures as important areas of emphasis for the next five to ten years. Key Advances in Area III Developing and Refining Animal ModelsAnimal models are needed to test interventions targeted to various features of epilepsy, such as delaying the latency between initial insult and onset of spontaneous seizures, preventing the progression of epilepsy severity over time, converting pharmacoresistant to anticonvulsant-responsive seizures, and alleviating behavioral comorbidities. Progress has been made to address some of these aspects of disease modification and to identify etiologically relevant epilepsy animal models. One etiologically relevant animal model of cerebral viral infection is that produced by inoculation of mice with Theiler murine encephalomyelitis virus, which produces a strong neuroinflammatory reaction coupled with seizures and the development of long-term cognitive deficits (1). A similar model of cerebral malaria produces epilepsy that appears dependent on an intact complement pathway (2).Posttraumatic epilepsy is a leading cause of epilepsy in young adults. Much effort has been devoted to developing etiologic animal models that lend themselves to drug screening and can be used to understand mechanisms of epileptogenesis in this condition. A recent study (3) reported the parametric optimization of a rat fluid percussion model that results in focal, nonconvulsive, brief seizures. In this model young (1 month old) male Sprague Dawley rats are subjected to an abrupt percussive injury to the parietal cortex. Within