Can Epilepsy surgery improve or even reverse cognitive deficits in children with epilepsy?

Welcome to the 22nd episode of The Brain Podcast - the official podcast of the journals Brain and Brain Communications. 

This episode features a discussion with senior author Dr Torsten Baldeweg of the Brain article entitled: Long-term neuropsychological trajectories in children with epilepsy: does surgery halt decline?

Dr Baldeweg discusses fascinating insight into the long term cognitive outcomes from an impressively large cohort of 500 children who had undergone epilepsy surgery and neuropsychological assessment at Great Ormond Street Hospital (1990–2018). Their findings suggest that there are long term cognitive benefits from epilepsy surgery by preventing firther seizures. This has important clinical implications on the importance of achieving seizure freedom for our patients and the role of surgery in this regard.

The Brain podcast team is very happy to introduce a new co-host Dr Roberto Bellanti in this episode and to the team!

Check out the full article on the Brain website as part of the August 2024 issue: https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae121

This episode was co-hosted by Michael David and Roberto Bellanti,  edited and produced by Chaitra and Xin You Tai, co-produced by Antonia Johnston, original music by Ammar Al-Chalabi.