Epileptic baboons have lower numbers of neurons in specific areas of cortex.

Epilepsy is characterized by recurrent seizure activity that can induce pathological reorganization and alter normal function in neocortical networks. In the present study, we determined the numbers of cells and neurons across the complete extent of the cortex for two epileptic baboons with naturally occurring seizures and two baboons without epilepsy. Overall, the two epileptic baboons had a 37% average reduction in the number of cortical neurons compared with the two nonepileptic baboons.