Epilepsy type ‘not hereditary’

INTERNATIONAL researchers have proven one of the most severe forms of epilepsy is not hereditary.

INTERNATIONAL researchers have proven one of the most severe forms of epilepsy, which leads to massive seizures and brain damage, is not hereditary.

Teams from the universities of South Australia and Melbourne, and international partners at the University of Helsinki and in Italy, have found that, unlike most forms of the syndrome, progressive myoclonus epilepsy is caused by a germ that mutates genes.

University of South Australia epilepsy research program head Leanne Dibbens said new genomic testing techniques showed the mutation causing PME did not come from either parent. “What we found was the mutation was new in the patient and hadn’t come from the parents, it came from sperm being made or the egg or the embryo,” Associate Professor Dibbens said.