Last month, some assholes posted strobing images to Twitter with mentions of the Epilepsy Foundation's username and epilepsy-related hashtags, potentially triggering seizures in followers of the account who have photosensitive epilepsy. What a wonderful way to celebrate National Epilepsy Awareness Month. From CNN:

The Foundation identified at least 30 different accounts participating in the calculated action, Allison Nichol, the Epilepsy Foundation's director of legal advocacy told CNN. The Foundation was not able to say how many people were affected by the attacks.

The Foundation said it has filed criminal complaints with law enforcement and will cooperate with them to ensure the attackers "are held fully accountable."

People with photosensitive epilepsy are sensitive to flashing lights or particular visual patterns that may trigger seizures, the Epilepsy Foundation says.

"While the population of those with photosensitive epilepsy is small, the impact can be quite serious. Many are not even aware they have photosensitivity until they have a seizure," Jacqueline French, chief medical and innovation officer of the Epilepsy Foundation said in a statement.

image: detail of "Generalized 3 Hz spike and wave discharges in a child with childhood absence epilepsy" by Der Lange (CC BY-SA 2.0) Read the rest

For some children with severe epilepsy, the best treatment may be a very rare surgical procedure in which a large portion -- even half -- of the child's brain is removed or disconnected. Amazingly, many of these individuals can relearn motor, language, and cognitive skills. How? The brain reorganizes itself and builds new connections. To better understand this incredible process, and hopefully inform new interventions and rehabilitation, Caltech neuroscientists conducted brain scans on six adults "all of whom received the surgeries as children and now have relatively normal cognitive abilities." From Caltech:

"Despite missing an entire brain hemisphere, we found all the same major brain networks that you find in healthy brains with two hemispheres," says Dorit Kliemann, lead author of the new report and a postdoctoral scholar who works in the laboratory of Ralph Adolphs (PhD '93), the Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology, and the director of the Caltech Brain Imaging Center.

The brain scans also revealed an increased number of connections between the brain networks in the patients compared to healthy individuals. For example, the regions in the patients' brains that control the function of walking appeared to be communicating more with the regions that control talking than what is typically observed.

"It appears that the networks are collaborating more," says Kliemann. "The networks themselves do not look abnormal in these patients, but the level of connections between the networks is increased in all six patients...."

Says Kliemann, "It's truly amazing what these patients can do.

Participants in a VRChat room watched as the avatar of one of the participants appeared to go into a grand mal seizure, accompanied by distressed sounds audible through the voice-chat. Read the rest

The World Health Organization's new report on cannabidiol (CBD) found that the compound (which does not produce any kind of high -- and may actually counteract the psychoactive properties of THC) is not addictive, has no potential for abuse, and shows promise in a number of medical trials. Read the rest