Epilepsy, commonly known as epilepsy, is a common disease in life. Epilepsy is a chronic recurrent transient brain dysfunction syndrome. The incidence rate of epilepsy is high in China, which is next to stroke. So what are the causes of epilepsy? Will epilepsy be inherited? These are issues that we are more concerned about. The small edition of this article brings you an introduction to the etiology of epilepsy and the answer to whether epilepsy will be inherited. Let's have a look.
pathogeny:
The etiology of epilepsy is extremely complex, which can be divided into three categories, and there are many factors affecting the pathogenesis:
1. Idiopathic epilepsy
Suspicious genetic tendency has no other obvious etiology, often starts at a special age, has characteristic clinical and EEG manifestations, and the diagnosis is clear.
2. Symptomatic epilepsy
Central nervous system diseases affect structure or function, such as chromosome abnormalities, focal or diffuse brain diseases, and some systemic diseases.
(1) Localized or diffuse brain diseases ① various causes of congenital abnormal embryonic development lead to brain perforation malformation, microcephaly, congenital hydrocephalus, absence of corpus callosum, hypoplasia of cerebral cortex, perinatal fetal brain injury, etc; ② Acquired brain injury, such as brain trauma, after craniocerebral surgery, after stroke, after intracranial infection, acute alcoholism; The incidence rate of epilepsy in the newborn is about 1%, and the birth injury is accompanied by cerebral hemorrhage or cerebral anoxia. The incidence of epilepsy is 25%. ④ Inflammation includes central nervous system bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, spirochete infection and AIDS nervous system complications; ⑤ Cerebrovascular diseases such as cerebral arteriovenous malformation, cerebral infarction and intracerebral hemorrhage; ⑥ Intracranial tumors primary tumors such as glioma, meningioma, etc; ⑦ Genetic metabolic diseases such as tuberous sclerosis, cerebral facial hemangioma, Phenylpyruvate urine, etc; ⑧ About 1 / 3 of patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and pick's disease are complicated with seizures.
(2) Systemic diseases ① hypoxic encephalopathy such as cardiac arrest, CO poisoning asphyxia, anesthesia accident and aspiration failure can cause myoclonic seizures or generalized seizures; ② Metabolic encephalopathy, such as hypoglycemia, most often leads to epilepsy. Other metabolic and endocrine disorders, such as hyperglycemia, hypocalcemia, hyponatremia, uremia, hepatic encephalopathy and thyrotoxemia, can lead to seizures; ③ Cardiovascular diseases such as cardiac arrest, hypertension and encephalopathy; ④ Febrile convulsion and hippocampal sclerosis caused by febrile seizures are secondary systemic seizures of temporal lobe epilepsy and become an important cause of refractory epilepsy; ⑤ Eclampsia; ⑥ Poisoning, such as alcohol, isoniazid, carbazole and other drugs and heavy metal poisoning such as lead and thallium.
3. Cryptogenic epilepsy
More common. The clinical manifestations suggest symptomatic epilepsy, but no clear etiology has been found. It can start at a special age without specific clinical and EEG manifestations.
Can epilepsy be inherited?
Epilepsy is divided into primary and secondary. Generally speaking, secondary epilepsy is mostly caused by lesions inside and outside the skull. For example, intracranial tumor and craniocerebral injury; Brain abscess and encephalitis, this secondary epilepsy is usually not inherited. Primary epilepsy was previously considered as a single gene dominant or recessive disease. In recent years, it is considered to be a polygenic genetic disease. Children born to women with primary epilepsy may have epilepsy, especially if the patient's close relatives are married or both men and women are patients with primary epilepsy, the risk of children will increase many times; In addition, some genetic diseases will show epileptic symptoms, such as tuberous sclerosis, phenylketonuria, galactosemia and other diseases. Although their clinical symptoms are secondary epilepsy, because these diseases are obvious genetic diseases, this kind of symptomatic epilepsy will certainly be inherited.