Epilepsia. Official Journal of the International League Against Epilepsy

ATP is released into the extracellular space during pathologic processes including increased neuronal firing. Once released, ATP acts on P2 receptors including ionotropic P2X and metabotropic P2Y receptors, resulting in changes to glial function and neuronal network excitability. Evidence suggests an involvement of P2Y receptors in the pathogenesis of epilepsy, but there has been no systematic effort to characterize the expression and function of the P2Y receptor family during seizures and in experimental and human epilepsy.

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The cognitive and mood effects of levetiracetam (LEV) in older adults are not known. This study compared the cognitive and mood effects of LEV to placebo in healthy older adults.

Cognitive, mood, and balance variables were compared between LEV and placebo using a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study with two 5-week treatment periods. Healthy volunteers (n = 20) aged 65–80 (mean age 72.4) received either LEV or placebo in which the LEV target dose was 1,000 mg/day. ...

Urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and kallikrein-related peptidase 8 (KLK8) are serine proteases that contribute to extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling after brain injury. They can be labelled with the novel radiotracer [¹¹¹In]MICA-401. As the first step in exploring the applicability of [¹¹¹In]MICA-401 in tracing the mechanisms of postinjury ECM reorganization in vivo, we performed in vitro and ex vivo studies, assessing [¹¹¹In]MICA-401 distribution in the brain in two animal models: kainic acid–induced status epilepticus (KASE) and controlled cortical ...

Urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and kallikrein-related peptidase 8 (KLK8) are serine proteases that contribute to extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling after brain injury. They can be labelled with the novel radiotracer [¹¹¹In]MICA-401. As the first step in exploring the applicability of [¹¹¹In]MICA-401 in tracing the mechanisms of postinjury ECM reorganization in vivo, we performed in vitro and ex vivo studies, assessing [¹¹¹In]MICA-401 distribution in the brain in two animal models: kainic acid–induced status epilepticus (KASE) and controlled cortical ...

This study aimed to identify noninvasive biomarkers of human epilepsy that can reliably detect and localize epileptic brain regions. Having noninvasive biomarkers would greatly enhance patient diagnosis, patient monitoring, and novel therapy development. At the present time, only surgically invasive, direct brain recordings are capable of detecting these regions with precision, which severely limits the pace and scope of both clinical management and research progress in epilepsy.

We compared high versus low or nonspiking regions in nine ...

To determine the predictors of cognitive function in patients with drug-resistant gelastic seizures (GS) related to hypothalamic hamartoma (HH) before and after stereotactic radiofrequency thermocoagulation surgery (SRT).

We studied 88 patients with HH who underwent SRT between October 1997 and December 2014. Patients received neuropsychological tests preoperatively and postoperatively. Based on the preoperative measures, patients were categorized as “high-functioning” (full-scale intelligence quotient [FSIQ] ≥70; n = 48) and “low-functioning” group (FSIQ <70; n = 40). Univariate and ...

Hippocampal sclerosis (HS), the most common cause of refractory temporal lobe epilepsy, is associated with hippocampal volume loss and increased T2 signal. These can be identified on quantitative imaging with hippocampal volumetry and T2 relaxometry. Although hippocampal segmentation for volumetry has been automated, T2 relaxometry currently involves subjective and time-consuming manual delineation of regions of interest. In this work, we develop and validate an automated technique for hippocampal T2 relaxometry.

Fifty patients with unilateral or bilateral HS ...