Each patient has their own rhythm of epileptic seizures. To better understand why (and when) these occur, French, American, German and Polish researchers have looked into the functioning of the hippocampus. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the seizures respond to a particular rhythm, depending on the patient’s biological clock, as reported by Inserm.
“Epileptic seizures can occur at very different times of the day but, in the same individual, they most often occur at privileged times.“, underlines the study. To understand what was happening in the hippocampus at the time of the crisis, the researchers injected epileptogenic agents into mice with the disease and others healthy.
A tailor-made treatment?
By carrying out this experiment, they realized that there were memorization mechanisms in the hippocampus which followed a certain rhythm. If we understand this rhythm, we also understand the local molecular architecture associated with the patient’s epilepsy. “Our work shows that the molecular variations at the level of this cerebral structure are at the same time very numerous, very important and very specific to the situation, physiological or pathological.“
Currently, to treat epilepsy, we only have treatments “whose mechanisms of action are not very specific to the causes of the crisis, and whose effects last quite a long time“Identifying the key genes and proteins expressed in the favorable moments for the onset of the crisis could allow the development”new treatments targeting them, which would be administered to the patient according to the time when he is most vulnerable.“
Read also:
- Global warming favors high-risk pregnancies
- What explains the difference in height of children according to the countries of the world?
- The artificial pancreas tested in France: what is it?
