Basic Science of Epilepsy
Hierarchical clustering of brain activity during human nonrapid eye movement sleep
Mélanie Boly, Vincent Perlbarg, Guillaume Marrelec, Manuel Schabus, Steven Laureys, Julien Doyon, Mélanie Pélégrini-Issac, Pierre Maquet, and Habib Benali
PNAS. Published online before print March 26, 2012, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1111133109.
PNAS April 10, 2012 vol. 109 no. 15 5856-5861
Consciousness is reduced during nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep due to changes in brain function that are still poorly understood. Here, we tested the hypothesis that impaired consciousness during NREM sleep is associated with an increased modularity of brain activity.
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Seizure-induced brain-born inflammation sustains seizure recurrence and blood-brain barrier damage
Laura Librizzi PhD, Francesco Noè PhD, Annamaria Vezzani PhD, Marco de Curtis MD1, Teresa Ravizza PhD
Annals of Neurology. Accepted manuscript online: 24 FEB 2012. DOI: 10.1002/ana.23567
Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures often unresponsive to pharmacological treatment. Brain inflammation is considered a crucial etiopathogenetic mechanism of epilepsy that could be targeted to control seizures. Specific inflammatory mediators overexpressed in human epileptogenic foci are known to promote seizures in animal models. We investigate if seizures induce brain inflammation independently on extra-cerebral factors. We also verify whether brain-born inflammation is required and sufficient to maintain seizure activity and it supports blood-brain barrier (BBB) impairment. We addressed these questions by studying the relationship between seizures, inflammation and BBB permeability in a brain preparation isolated from extracerebral compartments.
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Neuron-restrictive silencer factor-mediated hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide gated channelopathy in experimental temporal lobe epilepsy
McClelland S, Flynn C, Dubé C, Richichi C, Zha Q, Ghestem A, Esclapez M, Bernard C, Baram TZ. (2011)
Annals of Neurology. 2011 Sep;70(3):454-64. doi: 10.1002/ana.22479.
Acquired HCN1 channelopathy derives from NRSF-mediated transcriptional repression that endures via chromatin modification and may provide insight into the mechanisms of a number of channelopathies that coexist with, and may contribute to, the conversion of a normal brain into an epileptic one.
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Glutamatergic pre-ictal discharges emerge at the transition to seizure in human epilepsy
Gilles Huberfeld, Liset Menendez de la Prida, Johan Pallud, Ivan Cohen, Michel Le Van Quyen, Claude Adam, Stephane Clemenceau, Michel Baulac and Richard Miles
Nature Neuroscience, May 2011 Volume 14, Issue 5, pp627 - 634, doi:10.1038/nn.2790
Brief and synchronous inter-ictal events can occur between seizures. Using human tissue samples and electroencephalography, this study shows that the transition from pre-ictal discharge to ictal discharge involves distinct temporal and spatial characteristics as well as glutamatergic mechanisms.
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Single-neuron dynamics in human focal epilepsy
Wilson Truccolo, Jacob A Donoghue, Leigh R Hochberg, Emad N Eskandar, Joseph R Madsen, William S Anderson, Emery N Brown, Eric Halgren and Sydney S Cash
Nature Neuroscience, May 2011 Volume 14, Issue 5, pp635 - 641 doi:10.1038/nn.2782
Epileptic seizures are traditionally considered to reflect hypersynchronous neuronal activity arising from runaway excitation. Here the authors analyze spike train patterns of single neurons during seizures in human epilepsy patients, finding that spiking activity during seizure initiation was highly heterogeneous in small cortical patches and across the network.
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A Novel Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Protocol Identifies Seizure-Induced Regional Overactivity of P-Glycoprotein at the Blood-Brain Barrier.
Bankstahl JP, Bankstahl M, Kuntner C, Stanek J, Wanek T, Meier M, Ding XQ, Müller M, Langer O, Löscher W.Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmacy, University of Veterinary Medicine, and Center for Systems Neuroscience, 30559 Hannover, Germany, Health and Environment Department, Molecular Medicine, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, 2444 Seibersdorf, Austria, Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Medical University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria, and Department of Cardiology and Angiology and Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology, Hannover Medical School, 30625 Hannover, Germany.
J Neuroscience 2011 Jun 15;31(24):8803-8811.
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Exome sequencing of ion channel genes reveals complex profiles confounding personal risk assessment in epilepsy.Klassen T, Davis C, Goldman A, Burgess D, Chen T, Wheeler D, McPherson J, Bourquin T, Lewis L, Villasana D, Morgan M, Muzny D, Gibbs R, Noebels J.
Cell. 2011 Jun 24;145(7):1036-48.
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