Accumulating evidence for a genetic link between epilepsy and neurodegenerative disease

Over the last several years, a number of studies have been published suggesting a link between epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease (AD), a neurodegenerative disorder. However, it is still unclear how directly these disease processes are connected. For example, is seizure activity and AD part and parcel of the same disease process, or is it that one disease process might predispose patients to the other by creating an environment conducive to it? Recently, we found that mutations in prickle orthologs from fruit flies to humans cause seizure disorders [1] and subsequently identified the process perturbed in seizure-prone prickle mutant flies [2]....