2014 Epilepsy Benchmarks Area II: Prevent Epilepsy and Its Progression

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Aristea S, Galanopoulou, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Michael Wong, Washington University; Devin Binder, University of California Riverside; Adam L. Hartman, Johns Hopkins University; Elizabeth M. Powell, University of Maryland; Avtar Roopra, University of Wisconsin; Richard Staba, University of California Los Angeles; Annamaria Vezzani, IRCCS Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri; Brandy Fureman, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Raymond Dingledine, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2016-05-01
• Publisher: American Epilepsy Society
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © American Epilepsy Society 2016
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.5698/1535-7511-16.3.187
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Epilepsy Currents
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 3
• Start Page: 187
• End Page: 191
• Grant/Funding Information: None declared
• Keywords: Dravet syndrome; Blood drain barrier; Epileptogenesis; Ketogenic diet; Science & Technology; Neurosciences & Neurology; Status epilepticus; Seizures; Temporal lobe epilepsy; Rat model; Clinical Neurology; Mouse model; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Biomarkers
• Research Categories: Engineering, Biomedical; Health Sciences, Pharmacology; Biology, Neuroscience

Abstract

The prevention of epilepsy and its progression after initial diagnosis represents one of the most challenging goals of epilepsy research (1). Although epilepsy diagnoses lack a formal component of disease stage, anecdotal clinical observation suggests that individual patients usually fall into one of at least three types of presentation: an easily treated type that is responsive to the first or second antiseizure medications tried, a relapsing/remitting type in which seizure control is intermittent, and a drug-resistant type in which the patient never achieves seizure control with medication (2). As drug-resistant epilepsy is extremely difficult to treat, the successful prevention of epilepsy in at-risk patients may provide the best strategy to alleviate the negative impact of epilepsy. Benchmark II aims to establish therapeutic approaches for preventing the development and progression of epilepsy by 1) understanding epileptogenic processes related to genetic or neurodevelopmental causes, 2) understanding epileptogenic processes related to acquired brain injuries, 3) identifying biomarkers for monitoring epileptogenesis, 4) developing models closely aligned with etiologies of human epilepsies, and 5) identifying molecular targets that drive epileptogenesis or are opposed to it.