Study identifies nonconvulsive seizures as potential culprit.  Already available drugs may stave off and even reverse debilitating symptoms.

The families of the five million Alzheimer's disease sufferers in the U.S. are all too familiar with the erratic neurodegenerative disorder.  "Mom seemed almost like herself this morning and then she drifted away from me," recounts senior investigator Lennart Mucke, describing a conversation with a patient's daughters.

The root of these heart-wrenching fluctuations between cognizance and confusion has eluded scientists for years.  But Mucke, director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues believe they may finally have pinpointed the cause of these puzzling personality twists as well as other cognitive deficits associated with Alzheimer's: petite mal (nonconvulsive) seizures similar to those exhibited in some types of epilepsy.

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