The causes are broadly classified into three types.
Idiopathic (primary), symptomatic (secondary), and cryptogenic (suspected to be symptomatic, but no cause has been found)
Idiopathic: 20% of all patients with epilepsy, mostly related to genetics
Cryptogenic: accounts for about 60% of all patients with epilepsy
Common causes of symptomatic epilepsy are as follows.
1. congenital malformations of brain development.
Such as anencephaly, megalencephaly, polymicrocephaly, gray matter heterotopia, cerebral penetration malformation, congenital hydrocephalus, hydrazine hypoplasia, arachnoid cyst, microcephaly, macrocephaly, etc.;
2. Neurocutaneous syndromes.
The most common ones are tuberous sclerosis, neurofibromatosis and cerebral trigeminal angiomatosis, etc;
3, genetic metabolic diseases.
Such as phenylketonuria, hyperammonemia, cerebral lipid deposition, vitamin B6-dependent disease, etc;
4, perinatal brain injury.
Mainly birth injuries, asphyxia, intracranial hemorrhage, hypoxia, ischemic encephalopathy, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and epilepsy is the most common;
5, intracranial infection.
Such as bacterial meningitis, viral encephalitis, brain abscess, mycobacterial meningitis, cerebral parasitosis, post-inoculation encephalitis, post-infectious encephalitis, etc. ;
6, nutritional and metabolic disorders and endocrine diseases.
Commonly have hypoglycemia, hypocalcemia, hypomagnesium, vitamin B6 deficiency, hypothyroidism;
7, cerebrovascular disease.
Such as cerebrovascular malformations, intracranial hemorrhage, cerebral vasculitis, cerebral infarction, etc. ;
8, trauma.
Intracranial hemorrhage, skull fractures, brain contusions, etc. caused by trauma can cause epilepsy, but the incidence is related to the degree and location of injury;
9, febrile convulsions after brain injury also lead to epilepsy.