Seizures

Physicians and researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital are constantly looking for safer, more effective treatments to help children live seizure-free.

Our clinicians and basic researchers work together, so discoveries from the laboratory quickly become new treatments. We typically have several clinical trials going on at any time. Our doctors are:

• searching for and testing new anti-seizure drugs
• developing better methods for diagnosing and treating seizures
• looking for ways to prevent other conditions from triggering seizures
• evaluating new imaging techniques that help surgeons avoid damaging functional brain tissue

Developing treatments that work for our youngest patients

In our Fetal-Neonatal Neurology Program, Janet Soul, MD, director of Clinical Neonatal Neurology, is working to put these breakthroughs to work for our patients. Dr. Soul is leading the first randomized clinical trial of a new seizure medicine for newborns in decades. Learn more.

Finding the best ways to diagnose seizures

Babies rushed to the emergency room with seizures and fever often get a spinal tap to rule out bacterial meningitis. But spinal taps are invasive and can be very uncomfortable for children. So Amir Kimia, MD, and colleagues in the Boston Children’s Division of Emergency Medicine are working to determine when spinal taps are really needed. In a recent study, they found that spinal taps probably shouldn’t be done routinely, although they should be done for children who have certain symptoms.

Learn more

To read more about our research and new treatment strategies for children who are experiencing seizures, please visit our Epilepsy page.