The Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsies of Adolescence with Childhood and Juvenile Age of Onset

Three recent books have emphasized the idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGEs) (1-3), and in that edited by Wolf (3), a helpful conceptual scheme by Berkovic et al. (4) illustrates the topic of this review (Fig. 1). The arrows indicate that the four syndromes of childhood absence epilepsy (CAE), juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE), juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), and epilepsy with grand ma1 on awakening (GMA) are idiopathic, and that they belong to the large group of generalized epilepsies. Their clinical and genetic relations, however, as indicated by the horizontal arrows, remain a problem that can be expressed by asking: “What are the differences between these syndromes,” and “What do they have in common?” We hope that the answers to these questions will provide conclusions that are helpful for the scientific elucidation of their pathogenesis and for medical practice in counseling and treating patients.