• Epilepsia · Nov 2002

    Calcium-dependent epileptogenesis in an in vitro model of stroke-induced "epilepsy".

    • David A Sun, Sompong Sombati, Robert E Blair, and Robert J DeLorenzo.
    • Departments of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23298, USA.
    • Epilepsia. 2002 Nov 1;43(11):1296-305.

    PurposeStroke is the most common cause of acquired epilepsy. The purpose of this investigation was to characterize the role of calcium in the in vitro, glutamate injury-induced epileptogenesis model of stoke-induced epilepsy.MethodsFura-2 calcium imaging and whole-cell current clamp electrophysiology techniques were used to measure short-term changes in neuronal free intracellular calcium concentration and long-term alterations in neuronal excitability in response to epileptogenic glutamate injury (20 microM, 10 min) under various extracellular calcium conditions and in the presence of different glutamate-receptor antagonists.ResultsGlutamate injury-induced epileptogenesis was associated with prolonged, reversible elevations of free intracellular calcium concentration during and immediately after injury and chronic hyperexcitability manifested as spontaneous recurrent epileptiform discharges for the remaining life of the cultures. Epileptogenic glutamate exposure performed in solutions containing low extracellular calcium, barium substituted for calcium, or N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)-receptor antagonists reduced the duration of intracellular calcium elevation and inhibited epileptogenesis. Antagonism of non-NMDA-receptor subtypes had no effect on glutamate injury-induced calcium changes or the induction epileptogenesis. The duration of the calcium elevation and the total calcium load statistically correlated with the development of epileptogenesis. Comparable elevations in neuronal calcium induced by non-glutamate receptor-mediated pathways did not cause epileptogenesis.ConclusionsThis investigation indicates that the glutamate injury-induced epileptogenesis model of stroke-induced epilepsy is calcium dependent and requires NMDA-receptor activation. Further, these experiments suggest that prolonged, reversible elevations in neuronal free intracellular calcium initiate the long-term plasticity changes that underlie the development of injury-induced epilepsy.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…