Inflammation: cause or consequence of epilepsy?

Epilepsy is the third most common neurological disorder, affecting about 70 million people worldwide. It is defined as a central nervous system disorder which affects the neuronal activity in the brain, causing unprovoked seizures and other behavioral changes. Unfortunately, one-third of epilepsy patients are unresponsive to available therapies and patients who respond to antiepileptic drugs often complain of debilitating side effects. In the effort of devising a suitable therapy for epilepsy treatment, researchers delved into the origin of seizures and the epileptogenic process and found an association between epilepsy and inflammation. Here, we discuss the involvement of inflammatory mediators in the development and progression of seizures and epileptogenesis, supported by clinical shreds of evidence. Subsequently, we discuss the role of inflammation in the generation of seizures, as it is debatable whether inflammation is the cause or consequence of epilepsy, along with experimental models in inflammation and epilepsy research.