June 14, 2012 New research shows that human herpesviruses
(HHV)-6B and HHV-7, commonly know as roseola virus), account for
one third of febrile status epilepticus (FSE) cases. Results of
the FEBSTAT prospective study now available in Epilepsia, a
journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the
International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), suggest that
HHV-6B may be involved in the development of epilepsy and
further research is urgently needed. FEBSTAT is a multi-center
study of the consequences of FSE, designed to identify the
factors that increase the risk of injury to the hippocampus, an
area of the brain responsible for long-term memory and
implicated in the development of temporal lobe epilepsy. The
FEBSTAT study is funded by the National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). According to previous research, up
to 5% of children under the age of five have febrile seizures,
making it the most common type of seizure, with peak incidence
at a