Apex Foundation

Individuals with disease-causing variants in STXBP1 frequently have epilepsy onset in the first year of life with a variety of seizure types, including epileptic spasms. However, the impact of early onset seizures and antiseizure medication (ASM) on the risk of developing epileptic spasms and impact on their trajectory are poorly understood, limiting informed and anticipatory treatment, as well as trial design. We retrospectively reconstructed seizure and medication histories in weekly intervals for individuals with STXBP1 developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (DEE) with epilepsy onset in the first year of life and quantitatively analyzed longitudinal seizure histories and medication response. We included 61 individuals with early onset seizures, 29 of whom had epileptic spasms. Individuals with neonatal seizures were likely to have continued seizures after the neonatal period (25/26). The risk of developing epileptic spasms was not increased in individuals with neonatal seizures or early infantile seizures (21/41 vs. 8/16, odds ratio [OR] = 1, 95% confidence interval [CI] = .3-3.9, p = 1). We did not find any ASM associated with the development of epileptic spasms following prior seizures. Individuals with prior seizures (n = 16/21, 76%) had a higher risk of developing refractory epileptic spasms (n = 5/8, 63%, OR = 1.9, 95% CI = .2-14.6, p = .6). Individuals with refractory epileptic spasms had a later onset of epileptic spasms (n = 20, median = 20 weeks) compared to individuals with nonrefractory epileptic spasms (n = 8, median = 13 weeks, p = .08). We provide a comprehensive assessment of early onset seizures in STXBP1-DEE and show that the risk of epileptic spasms is not increased following a prior history of early life seizures, nor by certain ASMs. Our study provides baseline information for targeted treatment and prognostication in early life seizures in STXBP1-DEE.

Currently, social networks are part of the lives of adolescents, who make intensive use of them to relate to each other and to the world, making them a major factor in socialization. This has led to a great deal of scientific research on the influence of this means of communication in many areas of the life and development of adolescents, especially in the field of both physical and mental health. This paper reviews some relevant psychological phenomena associated with the use of social networks to understand their influence on adolescent behaviour; the main psychosocial risk factors for problematic internet use at this stage and their possible relationship with eating disorders based on recent research findings; as well as some proposals adopted within the European Union and in Spanish legislation for the control of harmful content on the Internet, especially those related to the advocacy of anorexia and bulimia, which until very recently escaped any possibility of control despite their importance for public health. Finally, we briefly discuss the potential of technology to implement these controls and present a research project for the detection and neutralization of apology of ED on Twitter, funded and implemented by the APE Foundation with the collaboration of the University of Zaragoza.