New Horizons to Manage Epilepsy Based on an Integrated Comprehension of Complex Systems Theory and Persian Medicine

Medical management of Epilepsy can be based on two different theoretical explanatory models of the brain behavior. Conventional approach to the brain is based on linear causality, certainty, reductionistic analytic modeling, and one-to-one correspondence between brain structures. Another approach is based on complex systems theory that explains the brain behaviors relying on circular causality, uncertainty, holistic emergent modeling, and one-to many/many-to-one correspondence between the brain and other organs. The first approach is the basis of current clinical interventions to control epilepsy. The latter approach understands the neurologic phenomena as highly-complex events arising from dynamic interactions and counteractions in the brain and its extensive inner and outer exposome. In this viewpoint the brain is a master organ involved in a web of interacting organs with various types of biologic information including mechanical, eurochemical, hormonal, electromagnetic, etc. so all the elements of the human bio-system including the organs, energy, and information are needed to provide multi-stability in both physiological and pathological states of the brain. Additionally sage physicians in Hikmat-based PersianMedicine like Avicenna have presented wide interactions between the brain and other organs including gut, uterus, heart, liver, spleen, etc., and the great influence of their healthy/unhealthy dynamics on the brain behavioral patterns. Converging the conceptual principles ofcomplex systems theory, ethio-semiologic teachings about epilepsy in medical manuscripts of Persian Medicine, and also regarding the recent supporting evidences on organ-brain axes, our understanding about epilepsy process, seizure susceptibility and epileptogenesis would shift to a different perspective. Conclusion: Our medical experiments in academic clinical settings show the considerable outcomes of thisinterdisciplinary insight to promote medical treatments and improve the quality of life in epileptic people.