Neonatal seizures due to brain injury (acute provoked seizures) are associated with high risk of post-neonatal epilepsy. Although clinical risk factors can help predict which children are at highest risk for epilepsy, little is known about how genetic factors modify the risk for epilepsy after acute provoked neonatal seizures. The Neonatal Seizure Registry - GENetics of Epilepsy (NSR-GENE) study will test the central hypothesis that children who develop post-neonatal epilepsy are more likely to have pathogenic variants in epilepsy genes, and enrichment in single nucleotide polymorphisms within key inflammatory, neurotransmitter transport and homeostasis, and neurotrophic gene pathways as compared with children who do not develop unprovoked seizures before age five years, and that these can be added to traditional clinical risk factors to predict epilepsy after neonatal seizures.
The NSR-GENE study is a longitudinal cohort study of approximately 300 parent-child trios from the Neonatal Seizure Registry and participating site outpatient clinics that aims to evaluate whether and how genes alter the risk of post-neonatal epilepsy among children with acute provoked neonatal seizures. The researchers aim to develop prediction rules to stratify neonates into low, medium, and high risk for post-neonatal epilepsy based on clinical, electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and genetic risk factors.