What is epilepsy?

  In China, ancient folklore calls epilepsy “sheep epilepsy”, “goat horns wind” or “sow wind”, and superstitious people believe that it is “demonic possession “In the West, it is believed to be the “evil ghost” in the brain, often by drilling open the skull in order to release the evil ghost inside the skull. As humans continue to explore the field of medicine, the mystery of epilepsy has been unraveled.  The modern medical definition of epilepsy is a chronic syndrome of the brain characterized by seizures, recurrent, transient, and often rigid brain disorders caused by highly synchronized and often self-limiting abnormal discharges of neurons in the brain of known or unknown etiology.  The above definition has the following four clear connotations: (1) The etiology of epilepsy is not particularly clear. Some patients have a clear etiology, while others cannot be identified.  (2) Abnormal neuronal discharges are common to epilepsy. Regardless of the cause of epilepsy, abnormal neuronal discharges in the brain are present 100% of the time.  (3) Seizures in patients with epilepsy have the following four common features: ① Seizures: they occur in bursts. The seizure period is abnormal, and the interictal period is one like normal.  (2) Repetitive: multiple repeated seizures. A single seizure cannot be diagnosed as epilepsy.  ③Transient: Each seizure usually lasts for a few seconds or minutes, and generally does not exceed 30 minutes (with the exception of persistent status epilepticus).  (4) Stereotypy: each seizure is basically the same or very similar in the same patient.  (4) Epilepsy is a chronic disease of the human brain.