What happens in the brain just before a
seizure starts?
Grant round winners 2007
24 April 2007
John Jefferys, Premysl Jiruska
and John Fox, at the Division
of Neuroscience, University of Birmingham,
are investigating a characteristic pattern
of electrical activity that occurs in brain
cells just at the point when normal brain
activity changes to seizure activity. How
this pattern leads to seizures is not yet
known, but understanding it may lead to
new drugs which target seizures in their
early stages.
This important pattern consists of clumps
of very fast spikes of electrical current.
Each individual spike is caused by a tiny
group of neurones firing together. Collections
of these firing groups (called aggregates)
generate the whole pattern.
In previous work, funded by the Epilepsy
Research Foundation (now Epilepsy Research
UK) in 2004, these researchers studied this
phenomenon in brain cells with all synapse
activity blocked. Synapses are the normal
gates for communication between brain cells.
Now in a new project called "Fast
network activity and neuronal aggregate
formation preceding epileptic seizures:
combined in vitro and human study",
costing £74,932 over two years,
they will look at the same phenomenon in
cells which don't have this activity blocked
(like the normal conditions in the body).
The researchers will try to find out how
aggregate firing works in cells which can
communicate via their synapses, and how
this firing affects the way the synapses
work. They'll then try to understand how
both these processes interact to lead to
seizures.
They'll also use sophisticated computer
analysis techniques to look at EEG scans
from patients with intractable epilepsy,
to see if the same patterns are visible
there.
