Doose Syndrome. In the early 1970s, a group of children with severe childhood epilepsies was found to have comparable clinical features that consisted of quick jerks and subsequent drop attacks amongst other types of epileptic seizures. These seizures, myoclonic-astatic or myoclonic-atonic seizures, eventually became the defining feature of an epilepsy syndrome referred to as Myoclonic Astatic Epilepsy or Doose Syndrome. In the recent issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, we report on the first true gene for Doose Syndrome. Here is the story of SLC6A1 (GAT-1). Continue reading
Tag Archives: presynapse
Heat at the synapse – STX1B mutations in fever-associated epilepsies
Febrile Seizures. The discovery of the genes for fever-associated epilepsies was one of the most relevant milestones in epilepsy genetics. Discovery of the underlying genes including SCN1A, SCN1B and GABRG2 was tightly linked to the development of the Genetic/Generalized Epilepsy with Febrile Seizures Plus (GEFS+) concept, describing the spectrum of epilepsy phenotypes seen in families with these mutations. Gene discovery in GEFS+, however, has slowed down in recent years, and no further causative genes had been identified for more than a decade. Now, in a recent paper in Nature Genetics, mutations in STX1B are found as a novel cause for fever-associated epilepsies. Continue reading
