Welcome!

Congratulations! You have found a website dedicated to research on Rolandic epilepsy. Our team of physicians and scientists is based at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. Our acronym IRELAND stands for International Rolandic Epilepsy Linkage and NeuroDevelopment.

Our mission is simple - to find out the cause of rolandic epilepsy and its associated neurodevelopmental impairments by genetic linkage analysis. Once this puzzle is solved, we will have taken the first step towards a possible cure and preventive treatments for the most common epilepsy of childhood. Once the cause is known, then new treatments can be invented that attack the cause, and don’t just suppress the symptoms - treatments that may be free of the side effects of current antiepileptic drugs. Once the cause is known, tests can be developed to help diagnose patients better, and give more personalized information for counselling on complications, suitable treatments and eventual outlook. Of course, that’s the future. This is now, and we need your help to get there.

If you are a concerned parent whose child has recently been diagnosed, one of the most important things you can do is to take part in our studies. You will be helping to consign epilepsy to the history books, and you’ll contribute towards a brighter future for hundreds of thousands of children throughout the world.

Please read on and don’t hesitate to contact us with questions or comments.

The contents of this website have been approved by the Institutional Review Board of the

New York State Psychiatric Institute / Columbia University Medical Center, New York.