Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Mechanisms Of Seizure During Pregnancy And Preeclampsia, Abbie Chapman Johnson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Eclampsia is defined as de novo seizure in a woman with the hypertensive complication of pregnancy known as preeclampsia (PE), and is a leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality worldwide. The pathogenesis of eclamptic seizure remains unknown, but is considered a form of hypertensive encephalopathy where an acute rise in blood pressure causes loss of cerebral blood flow (CBF) autoregulation and hyperperfusion of the brain that results in vasogenic edema formation and subsequent seizure. However, eclamptic seizure can occur during seemingly uncomplicated pregnancies, in the absence of hypertension and PE, suggesting that normal pregnancy may predispose the …