What does the future hold?

The high level of interest in status epilepticus (SE), reflected in a flood of publications on this topic in the past 5 years, shows no sign of abating, and we can expect further progress in the next few years. However, there are significant barriers to progress: the federal funding for epilepsy research is decreasing, the number of people trained in epilepsy research is on the wane, the pharmaceutical industry is reducing its investments in basic and drug discovery research, the already formidable regulatory and legal barriers that limit translation of new discoveries into practical treatments are mushrooming out of control, and the few practical treatments that are developed remain available only to a privileged few in the most developed countries.