Neonatal seizures

Abstract

The newborn brain is particularly vulnerable to seizures which are associated with poor neurodevelopmental outcome. The clinical manifestations of seizures in infants differ from those seen in older children and adults. The problem of electro-clinical dissociation, where there is no temporal correspondence between electrical paroxysms and repetitive stereotyped motor phenomena, is common in the newborn. There is at present very little information on which clinicians can base a rational decision about treatment which is often ineffective and does not alter neurodevelopmental outcome. This review summarizes current knowledge regarding investigation, treatment and prognosis of neonatal seizures.

Electrocardiogram Based Neonatal Seizure Detection

“…Seizures occur in 6%-13% of low birth weight infants and 1-2 per 1000 infants born at term [2]. Although changes in heartbeat timing have been described during neonatal seizures [1]- [4], they are much neglected in automatic seizure detection research.…”

Neonatal seizures: clinical manifestations and etiology

“…15 In our study, metabolic disturbances were found in 11 neonates (28.95%), mainly resulted in hypocalcemia. Rennie 16 and Pressler 17 stated that hypocalcemiahypomagnecemia as the etiology of 4-22% of cases. Intracranial hemorrhage was diagnosed as the etiology of neonatal seizures in 7 cases (18.42%).…”

Differential effects of AMPA receptor activation on survival and neurite integrity during neuronal development

“…Increasing evidence suggests that immature neurons differ from mature neurons in their reactions to pathological conditions (Rennie, 1997;Olney et al, 2004). To understand which cellular responses to trauma are different and which are similar, immature and mature neurons must be analyzed in comparison.…”

“…Since learning and motor deficits are often a long-term outcome of neonatal brain injury (Rennie, 1997;Volpe, 2001;Ferriero, 2004), it is vital to define how excitotoxic compounds lead to these defects. AMPA/KA-R activation has been shown to regulate motility of filopodia in growing axons of hippocampal cultures (Chang and De Camilli, 2001), suggesting that AMPA-Rs are involved in controlling axonal extension.…”

“…Nonetheless, despite increased spontaneous excitability, the immature brain undergoes less cell death than the mature brain after seizures of identical magnitude (Rennie, 1997;Sperber et al, 1997). It is unclear how immature neurons survive concentrations of excitatory compounds that are lethal to mature neurons, and whether in the absence of cell death, neuronal differentiation is impaired by the changes in the developmental patterns of activity, which could in turn result in later cognitive or motor neurological deficits (Huttenlocher and Hapke, 1990;Holmes et al, 2002;Ferriero, 2004).…”