Epilepsy and Seizures

The epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder in which clusters of nerve cells in the brain signal abnormally and cause seizures. The syndromes include uncontrolled shaking movements (e.g. tonic-clonic seizure involving much of the body with loss of consciousness), shaking movements (e.g. focal seizure involving only part of the body with variable levels of consciousness) and subtle momentary loss of awareness (e.g. absence seizure).

Seizures can be conceptualized as a result of the imbalance between excitation (E) and inhibition (I) in the brain. The factors that alter E/I balance can be genetic or acquired. These factors vary from genes and subcellular signaling cascades to widespread neuronal circuits, such as abnormal synaptic connectivity in cortical dysplasia, abnormal GABA receptor subunits in Angelman syndrome, potassium channel mutations in Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE) and structural alteration of hippocampal circuitry following prolonged febrile seizures.

Fig.1 Traumatic brain injury and epilepsy: underlying mechanisms leading to seizure.

Creative Biolabs provides all kinds of products that can be applied to neuroscientific research: the roles of genes versus acquired factors in seizure predisposition, how epilepsy develops and how to prevent the consequences of seizures. Our products include neural cell lines and specialty media, neural proteins and antibodies, cytokines, agonists and antagonists.

Pathways and Genes Related to Epilepsy and Seizures