Epilepsy and Cognitive Impairments in Alzheimer Disease

Alzheimer disease (AD) is associated with cognitive decline and increased incidence of seizures. Seizure activity in AD has been widely interpreted as a secondary process resulting from advanced stages of neurodegeneration, perhaps in combination with other age-related factors. However, recent findings in animal models of AD have challenged this notion, raising the possibility that aberrant excitatory neuronal activity represents a primary upstream mechanism that may contribute to cognitive deficits in these models. The following observations suggest that such activity may play a similar role in humans with AD: (1) patients with sporadic AD have an increased incidence of seizures that appears to be independent…