Brain Inflammation and Seizures: Evolving Concepts and New Findings in the Last 2 Decades

The concept of brain inflammation and its role in epilepsy has much evolved during the last 2 decades since my original Epilepsy Currents commentary,(1)and even more since its first description in autoptic tissue from Rasmussen's encephalitis or in epilepsies developing after central nervous system (CNS) infections. The new vision stems from in-depth investigations carried out since 1999 in preclinical models of provoked seizures and acquired epilepsies and in human focal epilepsies.(2)This commentary reports my subjective historical perspective of the progress in the field, also considering if predictions of the seminal findings were confirmed by the follow-up research, or if some original concepts were disproved. I will also discuss which aspects of this complex phenomenon need further investigations to help gather valuable insights for the clinical translation of the increasing experimental evidence.