Tackling climate change now is vital to safeguard future treatment of epilepsy

As the Met Office warned 2025 was set to be to be the hottest year since records began, Professor Sanjay Sisodiya at the Epilepsy Society has advocated that neuroscientists must engage with issues raised by climate change.

Writing in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, he tells fellow neuroscientists that they have a vital role to play both in tackling the global challenge to health and well being, but also in addressing  the contribution that they are making to climate change. Laboratories typically have ten times the carbon footprint per square meter of non-research activities.

Sanjay Sisodiya is Transformation Director at the Epilepsy Society and Professor of Neurology at UCL. He is also Deputy Director for Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology.

Epilepsy diagnosis and treatment

He warns that events made more frequent and severe by climate change, such as heatwaves, hurricanes, floods, drought and wildfires will threaten energy supplies which in turn could jeopardise neuroimaging facilities and ultra-low freezers containing irreplaceable samples. All essential for the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy.

Additionally, climate change could threaten potential new therapies that have been developed under current circumstances, without factoring in the impact of heatwaves and unseasonally high temperatures.

The ability of scientists to carry out groundbreaking research could also be compromised. Heatwaves, for example, can affect people who may be working in a hot office, with impacts on their ability to think clearly

And for those whose creativity is promoted by  things  such as coffee and chocolate, or a walk outdoors, they may find such options off the agenda due to the impacts of climate change.

Writing in the Nature Reviews Neuroscience, he concludes: “We all believe our own work is important, perhaps leaving no time for other activities, such as institutional citizenship. However, we will inevitably need to embrace adaptation. It is not a choice between neuroscience and climate change action, but neuroscience in the context of climate change.”

To read the full article, go to Climate change matters to neuroscience - PubMed