Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of acquired epilepsy, especially for persons aged 15-24 years. About 40 percent of individuals with post-traumatic epilepsy have onset within six months; 50 percent within one year; and about 80 percent within two years of head injury. However, post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) may begin more than 15 years later. The delay in recurrent seizure development presents both a clinical window for treatment and a significant hurdle for clinical and pre-clinical studies. Therefore, to elucidate both the cellular and molecular pathways through which seizures are induced by TBI and the clinical course, precise, carefully controlled studies are needed.

The conference will set the stage to optimize preclinical and clinical research to prevent epileptogenesis following TBI. The results will help improve biomedical research in posttraumatic epilepsy. The goals of the conference are to 1) Improve communication and collaboration between TBI and epilepsy investigators to focus on the study of PTE. 2) Optimize preclinical models and markers to reduce replication of efforts and to improve predictive value of preclinical models to the clinic. 3) Identify gaps in the research that require additional efforts. 4) Identify clinical markers for prevention of PTE. 5) Identify the next steps toward pre-clinical and clinical development of treatment paradigms to prevent PTE. 6) Develop protocols for handling and archiving large datasets.