ABSTRACT
Gelastic epilepsy is a special refractory epilepsy accompany with ictal laughing and/or crying which can be divided into cortical induced gelastic epilepsy and hypothalamic hamartomas induced gelastic epilepsy according to their epileptogenic focus.Currently, domestic scholars had lack of systematic understanding of the mechanism and clinical treatment involved in gelastic epilepsy.Recently, foreign scholars had achieved great progress in the research of gelastic epilepsy which included the ictal laughing mechanism in gelastic epilepsy, the primary molecular mechanism in hypothalamic hamartomas induced gelastic epilepsy, the secondary epileptogenesis mechanism in hypothalamic hamartomas induced gelastic epilepsy and the clinical treatment of gelastic epilepsy.Now, the study progress of pathogenesis and clinical treatment of gelastic epilepsy were reviewed.