Dynamic Transitions of Epilepsy Waveforms Induced by Astrocyte Dysfunction and Electrical Stimulation.

Dynamic Transitions of Epilepsy Waveforms Induced by Astrocyte Dysfunction and Electrical Stimulation. Neural Plast. 2020;2020:8867509 Authors: Zhang H, Shen Z, Zhao Q, Yan L, Du L, Deng Z Abstract Experimental studies have shown that astrocytes participate in epilepsy through inducing the release of glutamate. Meanwhile, considering the disinhibition circuit among inhibitory neuronal populations with different time scales and the feedforward inhibition connection from thalamic relay nucleus to cortical inhibitory neuronal population, here, we propose a modified thalamocortical field model to systematically investigate the mechanism of epilepsy. Firstly, our results show that rich firing activities can be induced by astrocyte dysfunction, including high or low saturated state, high- or low-frequency clonic, spike-wave discharge (SWD), and tonic. More importantly, with the enhancement of feedforward inhibition connection, SWD and tonic oscillations will disappear. In other words, all these pathological waveforms can be suppressed or eliminated. Then, we explore the control effects after different external stimulations applying to thalamic neuronal population. We find that single-pulse stimulation can not only suppress but also induce pathological firing patterns, such as SWD, tonic, and clonic oscillations. And we further verify that deep brain stimulation can control absence epilepsy by regulating the amplitude and pulse width of sti...
Source: Neural Plasticity - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Neural Plast Source Type: research