Encephalitis and epilepsy.

Epileptic seizures can be induced by a variety of underlying diseases. One of the causes is brain inflammation or encephalitis. In this review, we focus on three different kinds of encephalitis known to occur with seizures: Rasmussen encephalitis, paraneoplastic encephalitis, and nonparaneoplastic encephalitis. We describe pathogenic similarities and differences in the immunological response and cell death in the central nervous system of these three types of encephalitis and discuss the present ideas regarding the underlying etiology of these diseases.