Since the time of Sommer's review of hippocampal pathology and Gower's tenet that' seizures beget seizures' there has been interest in changes in brain structure and function that may be associated with epilepsy. From recent experimental studies and clinical observations, there is increasing evidence that epilepsy is not only associated with structural and functional alterations in the nervous system, but also that seizures induce a diverse variety of molecular, cellular, and functional alterations in the brain.