Lesional and non-lesional epilepsies: A blurring genetic boundary

Abstract

There has been a traditional conceptual partition between the so-called non-lesional genetic epilepsies and the genetically determined interposed epileptogenic structural abnormalities. In this review, we summarise how growing evidence acquired through neuroimaging and neurobiology modelling is demonstrating that a distinction between lesional and functional (or non-lesional) epileptogenesis is less obvious than previously thought, particularly for epileptogenic neurodevelopmental disorders, but also for most genetically determined epilepsies.

Keywords: Epileptogenic structural abnormalities; Genetic epilepsies; Neurodevelopmental disorders with epilepsy; Phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity.