Energy Dynamics in Seizure Disorder: Reexamining the Sacred Disease

Abstract

In this paper we explore the dynamic basis of epilepsy, the sacred disease, and show, surprisingly, that in all cases its manifest signs and symptoms correspond to the four-tier vertical framework –material, efficient, formal and final causes – advanced by Aristotle a half-century after the Hippocratic works surfaced. Specifically, impaired energy dynamics during the seizure state transiently disrupt the couplement between the material and formal causal layers of the body precipitating the behavioral alterations that define epilepsy.