A biomarker that will enable the identification of patients at high-risk for developing post-injury epilepsy is critically required. Microvascular pathology and related blood-brain barrier dysfunction and neuroinflammation were shown to be associated with epileptogenesis after injury. Here we used prospective, longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging to quantitatively follow blood-brain barrier pathology in rats following status epilepticus, late electrocorticography to identify epileptic animals and post-mortem immunohistochemistry to confirm blood-brain barrier dysfunction and neuroinflammation. Finally, to test the pharmacodynamic relevance of the proposed biomarker, two anti-epileptogenic interventions were used; isoflurane anaesthesia and losartan. Our results show that early blood-brain barrier pathology in the piriform network is a sensitive and specific predictor (area under the curve of 0.96, P < 0.0001) for epilepsy, while diffused pathology is associated with a lower risk. Early treatments with either isoflurane anaesthesia or losartan prevented early microvascular damage and late epilepsy. We suggest quantitative assessment of blood-brain barrier pathology as a clinically relevant predictive, diagnostic and pharmaco!dynamics biomarker for acquired epilepsy.

On the night of 21 August 2013, sarin was dispersed in the eastern outskirts of Damascus, killing 1400 civilians and severely affecting thousands more. This article aims to delineate the clinical presentation and management of a mass casualty event caused by a nerve agent as shown in the social media. Authors searched YouTube for videos uploaded of this attack and identified 210 videos. Of these, 67 met inclusion criteria and were evaluated in the final analysis.These videos displayed 130 casualties; 119 (91.5%) of which were defined as moderately injured or worse. The most common clinical signs were dyspnea (53.0%), diaphoresis (48.5%), and loss of consciousness (40.7%). Important findings included a severe shortage of supporting measures and lack of antidotal autoinjectors. Decontamination, documented in 25% of the videos, was done in an inefficient manner. Protective gear was not noticed, except for sporadic use of latex gloves and surgical masks.This is believed to be the first time that social media was used to evaluate clinical data and management protocols to better prepare against future possible events.

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