NOVA regulation of NMD splicing also controls the levels of SCN9a, a sodium channel initially thought to act primarily in dorsal root ganglia (Meisler et al., 2010) (neurons that do not express NOVA proteins (Buckanovich et al., 1993)), but more recently found to be mutated in human epilepsy (causing familial febrile seizures; (Singh et al., 2009)). Here, SCN9A is linked to epilepsy.