Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common form of epilepsy in adults and frequently becomes resistant to drug therapy, presenting an enormous social and medical problem. However, the cellular and synaptic mechanisms underlying epilepsy in the temporal lobe are poorly understood. There is substantial evidence from both humans and animal models indicating that the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) plays critical roles in the generation and maintenance of TLE. Recently, we discovered that a major class of perisomatically projecting basket cells selectively innervate principal cells in layer II of the MEC that project outside the hippocampus, but avoid the neighboring cells that give rise to the perforant pathway to the dentate gyrus. Here we propose to test the hypothesis that there is a significant disruption of the normally highly specialized, local GABAergic control of entorhinal cortical output in TLE, and that the compromised GABAergic inhibition constitutes a key mechanism underlying hyperexcitability and spontaneous seizures in the entorhino- hippocampal network. The hypothesis will be tested in the repeated low dose kainate model of TLE during the chronic epilepsy phase, and the assessment will be carried out with paired recording electrophysiological and immunocytochemical methods, complemented by data-driven, large-scale computational modeling approaches. The experiments of this proposal are designed to specifically target cellular-synaptic mechanisms underlying TLE. It is anticipated that defining the functional consequences of experimental TLE on neurons in the MEC will help the future development of novel anti-epileptic treatment strategies.

Public Health Relevance

Many patients with temporal lobe epilepsy have repeated spontaneous seizures that cannot be controlled with existing drug therapies. Spontaneous seizures may be caused by persistently compromised inhibitory circuits that emerge after precipitating insults. The project will determine whether aberrant inhibitory regulation of the entorhino-hippocampal circuits contributes to the generation of seizures.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
7R01NS074432-06
Application #
9126243
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BDCN-C (02))
Program Officer
Whittemore, Vicky R
Project Start
2011-02-01
Project End
2016-01-31
Budget Start
2015-07-22
Budget End
2016-01-31
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
$129,022
Indirect Cost
$49,739
Name
Stanford University
Department
Neurosurgery
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
009214214
City
Stanford
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94304
Armstrong, Caren; Wang, Jessica; Yeun Lee, Soo et al. (2016) Target-selectivity of parvalbumin-positive interneurons in layer II of medial entorhinal cortex in normal and epileptic animals. Hippocampus 26:779-93
Krook-Magnuson, Esther; Gelinas, Jennifer N; Soltesz, Ivan et al. (2015) Neuroelectronics and Biooptics: Closed-Loop Technologies in Neurological Disorders. JAMA Neurol 72:823-9
Krook-Magnuson, Esther; Armstrong, Caren; Bui, Anh et al. (2015) In vivo evaluation of the dentate gate theory in epilepsy. J Physiol 593:2379-88
Soltesz, Ivan; Alger, Bradley E; Kano, Masanobu et al. (2015) Weeding out bad waves: towards selective cannabinoid circuit control in epilepsy. Nat Rev Neurosci 16:264-77
Nagaraj, Vivek; Lee, Steven T; Krook-Magnuson, Esther et al. (2015) Future of seizure prediction and intervention: closing the loop. J Clin Neurophysiol 32:194-206
Szabo, Gergely G; Schneider, Calvin J; Soltesz, Ivan (2015) Resolution revolution: epilepsy dynamics at the microscale. Curr Opin Neurobiol 31:239-43
Dudok, Barna; Barna, László; Ledri, Marco et al. (2015) Cell-specific STORM super-resolution imaging reveals nanoscale organization of cannabinoid signaling. Nat Neurosci 18:75-86
Krook-Magnuson, Esther; Ledri, Marco; Soltesz, Ivan et al. (2014) How might novel technologies such as optogenetics lead to better treatments in epilepsy? Adv Exp Med Biol 813:319-36
Lee, Sang-Hun; Marchionni, Ivan; Bezaire, Marianne et al. (2014) Parvalbumin-positive basket cells differentiate among hippocampal pyramidal cells. Neuron 82:1129-44
Kim, Iris H; Hevezi, Peter; Varga, Csaba et al. (2014) Evidence for functional diversity between the voltage-gated proton channel Hv1 and its closest related protein HVRP1. PLoS One 9:e105926

Showing the most recent 10 out of 16 publications