Abstracts

Rationale: Neurology® is the official journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).  The AAN was founded in 1948 and is the largest, international professional organization with over 36,000 members dedicated to the care and management of patients with neurological disorders. Neurology® is a premier peer-reviewed journal for clinical neurology research that has been published since 1951. The rationale for the present study was to identify the most cited and influential epilepsy articles that have been published in Neurology®.  Methods: The Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics, United States) citation indexing database was interrogated (1951-2019) using a number of search terms including: epilepsy, seizure disorder, status epilepticus and epilepsy surgery. Manuscripts unrelated to clinical epilepsy were removed from consideration. “Citation Classics” were identified that included articles cited more than 400 times. In addition, members of the Neurology® editorial board with an expertise in epilepsy reviewed selected articles (2015 and earlier) to determine their importance and influence in neurological practice.   Results: The Web of Science (from Medline) search returned a total of 3,463 articles (epilepsy), 667 articles (seizure disorder), 533 articles (epilepsy surgery), and 364 articles (status epilepticus) in Neurology®. The top 50 articles in each category were identified.  Sixteen articles from the combined search were “Citation Classics.” The epilepsy and status epilepticus article most cited was “A prospective, population-based epidemiologic study of status epilepticus in Richmond, Virginia” (Neurology 1996;46:1029-35). The epilepsy surgery article most cited was “Practice parameter: temporal lobe and neocortical resections for epilepsy…” (Neurology 2003;60:538-47). The editorial board members independently selected and proposed a list of approximately 50 influential articles.    Conclusions: The current report provides a sample of some of the most important works in epilepsy published in Neurology® during the first 70 years of the journal. Obviously, there are significant limitations with both methodologies, i.e., identification of the highest cited articles and the editors’ “top picks.”  Many articles of pivotal importance were not chosen or were published in other peer-reviewed journals. However, the results provide a glimpse of the literature in epilepsy in the past 70 years, outlines our historical achievements, and demonstrates what others find important, interesting, and provocative.  Funding: No funding