Summary

About 30% of people who suffer a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI)—and a smaller percentage of people with a milder one—later develop epilepsy. Three years ago, a $21 million project spanning five countries took the first steps toward epilepsy prevention for brain-injured patients: searching for biomarkers that presage epilepsy and, in animals, drugs that prevent it. Physicians treating TBI could follow the lead of the first epilepsy prevention trial, which is testing the epilepsy drug vigabatrin in babies with a rare genetic syndrome called tuberous sclerosis complex that comes with a very high risk of the seizure disorder.