"In November  when he was just  William Moller had his first epileptic seizure httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidesdiseasegeneralizedtonicclonicseizureoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier during a reading class at school. For about  seconds he simply froze in place as if someone had pressed a pause button. He could not respond to his teacher. This is known as an absence seizure httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidesdiseasepetitmalseizureoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier and over the next year William now  who lives with his family in Brooklyn went from having one or two a day to suffering constant seizures httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidessymptomsseizuresoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier. Not all were absence seizures others were frightening tonicclonics also known as grand mals during which he lost consciousness and convulsed. The seizures often came while he was eating. As his body went rigid William dropped his food and his eyes rolled back into their sockets. If he seized while standing he suddenly crashed to the ground  in a corridor in the driveway on the stairs. Its the scariest thing for any mother to hear that thump and each time he would hit his head so it only made things worse and worse said his mother Elisa Moller a pediatric nurse. William is among the onethird of epilepsy httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidesdiseaseepilepsyoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier sufferers who do not respond or respond only poorly to antiepileptic medications. Now he and others with refractory epilepsy are benefiting from treatment that targets inflammation the result of new research into how epilepsy damages the brain.  Many of us theorize that the two are tied  inflammation causes seizures and seizures cause inflammation said Orrin Devinsky director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at the New York University Langone Medical Center and Williams doctor. Over time both of them may feed off each other. About  million people worldwide including more than . million people in the United States are struggling with epilepsy in some form. Half of all patients are children. Epilepsy can result from brain injury httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidesinjuryheadinjuryoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier but in most cases the cause is unknown and may be genetic. Refractory epilepsy its intractable form and the medications with which doctors attempt to treat it can cause lifelong problems with learning memory and behavior. An epileptic seizure occurs when large groups of neurons in the brain begin firing uncontrollably disrupting the balance of electrical activity and causing changes in mental function motor function and behavior. Its not known what sets off a seizure but lately scientists like Dr. Devinsky have been gathering evidence that inflammation the immune systems response to injuries or foreign organisms plays a pivotal role. Scientists have known since the s that inflammation is involved in a particularly vicious brain disorder called Rasmussens encephalitis httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidesdiseaseencephalitisoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier which starts seizures and usually affects children. Inflammation inflicts such severe damage to the brain that the standard treatment for the condition is hemispherectomy  the surgical removal of one of the brains hemispheres. Some researchers also suspect an inflammatory link to another form of epilepsy infantile spasms because children with the disease respond to ACTH httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidestestacthoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier a hormone produced in the pituitary gland with strong antiinflammatory effects. Eleonora Aronica a neuropathologist at the University of Amsterdam has found signs of inflammation in autopsy specimens and surgical resections from patients with a wide range of epilepsies. Annamaria Vezzani a neuroscientist at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan has induced epilepsy in mice and rats by injecting kainic acid into their brains and has observed the activation of a cellular pathway linked to inflammation before and during seizures. The amount of inflammation in the brain correlates with the frequency of seizures she also has found. This is a novel finding Dr. Vezzani said in an interview. It was not known that inflammation was a common feature of different types of epilepsy. Normal brain function is regulated by the glial cells which protect neurons and induce an inflammatory response httphealth.nytimes.comhealthguidesspecialtopicimmuneresponseoverview.htmlinlinenytclassifier if the brain is injured. But this response also can contribute to seizures some experts believe either because components of the immune system stimulate neurons or because the glial cells capacity to regulate the brain is diminished when they become distracted by an injury. As Dr. Devinsky noted seizures in turn may produce further inflammation perpetuating the cycle. Now Dr. Vezzani and colleagues are testing a molecule called VX that disrupts the inflammatory process she discovered. In one study high doses of the drug reduced the number of seizures by about twothirds in mice with treatmentresistant epilepsy. Sixty patients enrolled in a subsequent trial did not experience a statistically significant improvement after taking VX for six weeks but they did begin to experience fewer seizures at the end of the trial. Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form The drug is now the subject of a Phase  trial involving  patients. Antiinflammatory therapies could at least supplement and perhaps replace anticonvulsants said Dr. Jacqueline French a neurologist at the N.Y.U. Comprehensive Epilepsy Center who is leading the new trial. Replacing anticonvulsants is not merely an end in itself. Although they give many epileptics a better quality of life they do not affect the course of the disease only its symptoms. Researchers hope that antiinflammatories may help ameliorate epilepsys underlying causes. Giving a medication that could treat the epilepsy as opposed to treating the seizure would be absolutely novel Dr. French said. But there are dangers to this approach. Steroids  potent antiinflammatories that some doctors are using for experimental treatments  can have harmful longterm side effects. And it remains unclear whether inflammation might be implicated in all forms of epilepsy or which patients might benefit from antiinflammatory treatment. Like any new field theres a lot of enthusiasm and almost a bit of religion involved said Dr. Tallie Z. Baram an epilepsy expert at the University of California Irvine. The challenge for the next few years is to find out the limitations the boundaries the real mechanisms. Still whatever the role of inflammation in epilepsy Elisa Moller says that antiinflammatories were a miracle intervention for her son. At Williams worst point a night in July  he had a seizure every time he fell asleep suffering  grand mals between midnight and  a.m. Dr. Devinsky had prescribed weekly doses of prednisone a steroid httptopics.nytimes.comtopnewshealthdiseasesconditionsandhealthtopicssteroidsindex.htmlinlinenytclassifier and in desperation Ms. Moller decided to administer a mega dose. I was taking his life into my hands I know she said. But the way I looked at it he was going to die anyway. Since that night William has not had another seizure. He continues with the steroids and also follows the ketogenic diet a highfat lowcarbohydrate regimen that has proved beneficial for many with intractable epilepsy. Steroids are the one thing I refuse to take him off of Ms. Moller said. The past year has been the best time of his life. Correction June    An article on Tuesday about treatments for epilepsy that focus on the role of inflammation in the disease misidentified the drug regimen prescribed for William Moller a Brooklyn boy whose seizures abated with steroid therapy. Williams doctor prescribed weekly doses of prednisone in pill form not weekly injections of prednisone."