The late 1990s heralded the development of several important technological advances in molecular biological research. DNA microarray and serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) were introduced allowing comparisons of global gene expression utilizing differing conditions in laboratory experimentation. This has allowed the relatively new field of comparative genomics to flourish (43, 54) . With respect to the brain, patterns of gene expression have been reported as early as 1999 with comparative libraries generated between malignant glioma tissue and normal brain for SAGE, and between sleep-wake cycles for microarray (40, 55) . From this point there has been an explosion of genomic information with steadily increasing reports generated during development and aging (38, 94, 106) , malignant brain processes (37, 101) , neurodegenerative disorders (41, 58) , behavioral (12, 45) and anatomical studies (18) . Studies into epileptogenesis have also expanded since the first global gene expression studies into epilepsy in 2001 (29, 42) . For this reason we will review the published papers and discuss the usefulness of global transcriptome analyses with regards to epileptogenesis.