A group of researchers at the University of Tokyo say their research found that the condition is caused by excitatory neural signaling generated in the brain when a child experiences a seizure along with a fever from a cold or flu, news agency Kyodo reported.
The team, including Yuji Ikegaya, associate professor in the university's graduate school of pharmaceutical sciences, said it could pave the way for finding a treatment to prevent epilepsy.
Epilepsy affects around one per cent of adults around the world. In Japan, more than one million people are believed to have the condition.
Symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy often manifest in adulthood. While this form of epilepsy has been ascribed to febrile seizure, its exact mechanism is unknown.
The research findings were reported in the online version of Nature Medicine, a biomedical research journal yesterday. (PTI)
SHL