Additionally, combined analyses of the ILAEC, FinnGen, and UKB datasets revealed a significant causal effect of plasma BDNF on epilepsy (OR = 0.94, 95 % CI: 0.90–0.98, P < 0.01) and a suggestive causal impact of plasma BDNF on focal epilepsy (OR = 0.94, 95 % CI: 0.89–0.99, P = 0.02), depicted in Fig. 7(B) and (C) respectively. This evidence concerns the gene BDNF and focal epilepsy.