Latent Period
After a brain injury occurs, there is frequently a "silent" or "latent period" lasting months or years in which seizures do not occur; Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield called this time between injury and seizure "a silent period of strange ripening". During this latent period, changes occur in the structure and physiology of the brain that result in the development of epilepsy. It is this process in which hyperexcitable neural networks form that is referred to as epileptogenesis, and it is during this latent period that symptoms of epilepsy first occur. If researchers come to better understand epileptogenesis, the latent period may provide a chance for healthcare providers to interfere with the development of epilepsy or reduce its severity.
Read more about this topic: Epileptogenesis
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—Anonymous. Quoted in Richard Chevenix Trench, On the Study of Words, lecture 1 (1858)