Thank you, gaross, that seems to be the area my neurologist is talking
about.  You are a very helpful  gentleman.

I wonder if others here have heard this term.

Kindling refers to the progressive lowering of seizure threshold with each
seizure.  The kindling phenomenon was discovered in the late 1960s in animal
experiments where rats were stimulated with very low intensity electrical
stimulation that caused a focal (partial) seizure with almost no behavioural
sign that anything was happening.  Over time (several weeks) with daily
stimulation, the rats would have progressively more severe behavioural
seizures, triggered by the same low intensity electrical stimulation.  This
"sensitization" to the electrical stimulation has been shown to be
permanent.

The progressive lowering of seizure threshold by electrical stimulation can
occur even in the absence of the stimulation triggering a seizure.  This is
a concern for people who have surgery to implant chronic stimulation
electrodes for things like parkinsons tremors or chronic pain.  Adjusting
the stimulation parameters seems to limit or eliminate the kindling effect.

Kindling is a hypothesis for the development of epilepsy, whereby repeated
focal seizures might progressively generalize to become tonic-clonic
seizures, and the individual's seizure threshold gets lower over time.
Small strokes, infections, head injury, tumors etc. might provoke small
focal seizures which don't manifest themselves as something easily
detectable.  Over time though, they get worse until the person has their
first tonic-clonic seizure and is diagnosed with epilepsy.  Perhaps that
time you fell off your bike as a child caused a small region of damage that
occasionally starts to seize.  You might not even notice anything.  With
each small seizure, the kindling effect continues until you have your first
tonic-clonic seizure several years later.

In epilepsy research, the kindling effect is commonly used to screen
potential therapies for intractable epilepsy.  It's also used to examine the
changes in the brain that occur following seizures.  This is my area of
research.  We're also looking at the potential role the kindling effect
might have on things associated with epilepsy like depression and learning
and memory difficulties.

With respect to humans though, it's just a theory of the development of
epilepsy.  There's currently little evidence in humans to support it though
I think most epileptologists suspect it might play a role in epilepsy.  This
is because it's been found to occur in every mammalian species it's been
tested for, whether they use electrical stimulation or seizure-inducing
drugs.  The possibility of a kindling effect occuring would promote the need
for fast and strong attempts to get the seizures under control right away.

How was the term used when referring to you Fifty Hertz?

Klenow