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Page 2 of 9 Neuroimmunol Neuroinflammation 2018;5:37 I http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2347-8659.2018.45

2. Epilepsy: the bridge between psychiatry and neurology

Moh Hasan Machfoed

Airlangga University

[1]
Epilepsy is a group of neurological disorders characterized by epileptic seizures . In 2000 BC, epilepsy
was considered as a demonic possession. Hippocrates (460-370 BC) proposed that epilepsy was a medically
[2]
treatable problem originating in the brain . Epilepsy as a mental disorder was proposed by Morel (1857).
He stated that epilepsy is caused by hereditary degeneration, which resulted in progressive intellectual and
moral degeneration. The concept of epilepsy as a neurologic disorder was introduced by Robert Bentley Todd
[3]
(1844) who developed the neuronal discharges theory . Epilepsy reflects brain dysfunction, that can affect
the mind and behavior. While the epileptic seizures themselves are episodic, the mental and behavioral
[4]
changes continue, in many cases, interictally . Many symptoms of neurologic or psychiatric illness - such
as cognitive impairment, depression, anxiety, attention deficits, and migraine - occur more frequently in
[5]
people with epilepsy than in the general population . The discipline of neurology emerged from ‘‘nervous
disorders’’ or neuropsychiatry in the late 19th century, when vascular theories of epilepsy predominated.
By the turn of the 19th century psychiatry and neurology were diverging and epilepsy remained to
[6]
some extent in both disciplines . It was only in the middle of the 20th century with the development of
electromagnetic theories of epilepsy that the concept of epilepsy per se as a neurological disorder was finally
adopted in international classifications of disease. In 1960, WHO determined that epilepsy as a neurological
[6]
(not mental) disease, and epilepsy with additional mental syndromes, was the province of psychiatry .
At the beginning of the 21st century and the centenary of the ILAE, psychiatry and neurology have been
converging again, led in some respects by epilepsy, which has provided several useful models of mental
[6]
illness and a bridge between psychiatry and neurology .

REFERENCES
1. Chang BS, Lowenstein DH. Epilepsy. N Engl J Med 2003;349:1257-66.
2. Farrington B. Science and politics in the ancient world. New York: Barnes & Noble; 1966. p. 64-6.
3. Binder DK, Rajneesh KF, Lee DJ, Reynolds EH. Robert Bentley Todd’s contribution to cell theory and the neuron doctrine. J Hist
Neurosci 2011;20:123-34.
4. Korczyn AD, Schachter SC, Brodie MJ, Dalal SS, Engel J Jr, Guekht A, Hecimovic H, Jerbi K, Kanner AM, Johannessen Landmark
C, Mares P, Marusic P, Meletti S, Mula M, Patsalos PN, Reuber M, Ryvlin P, Štillová K, Tuchman R, Rektor I. Epilepsy, cognition,
and neuropsychiatry (Epilepsy, Brain, and Mind, part 2). Epilepsy Behav 2013;28:283-302.
5. Brooks-Kayal AR, Bath KG, Berg AT, Galanopoulou AS, Holmes GL, Jensen FE, Kanner AM, O’Brien TJ, Whittemore VH,
Winawer MR, Patel M, Scharfman HE. Issues related to symptomatic and disease-modifying treatments affecting cognitive and
neuropsychiatric comorbidities of epilepsy. Epilepsia 2013;54:44-60.
6. Reynolds EH, Trimble MR. Epilepsy, psychiatry, and neurology. Epilepsia 2009;50:50-5.

3. Low level laser therapy: improved regeneration of injured sciatic nerve by He-Ne
laser

Nasrin Takzaree, Alireza Takzaree, Nooreddin Daneshvar, Hamid Reza Foroutan

Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Neuronal tissue is one of the most important tissues of the body which recovers extremely sluggishly after
being injured. Inability of the neural tissue to regenerate in response to trauma and the disability which