Publications by authors named "A Zayachkivsky"

Electrographic seizures and abnormal background activity in the neonatal electroencephalogram (EEG) may differentiate between harmful versus benign brain insults. Using two animal models of neonatal seizures, electrical activity was recorded in freely behaving rats and examined quantitatively during successive time periods with field-potential recordings obtained shortly after the brain insult (i.e.

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Infantile spasms (IS) are a catastrophic childhood epilepsy syndrome characterized by flexion-extension spasms during infancy that progress to chronic seizures and cognitive deficits in later life. The molecular causes of IS are poorly defined. Genetic screens of individuals with IS have identified multiple risk genes, several of which are predicted to alter β-catenin pathways.

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The relationship among neonatal seizures, abnormalities of the electroencephalogram (EEG), brain injury, and long-term neurological outcome (e.g., epilepsy) remains controversial.

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Many progressive neurologic diseases in humans, such as epilepsy, require pre-clinical animal models that slowly develop the disease in order to test interventions at various stages of the disease process. These animal models are particularly difficult to implement in immature rodents, a classic model organism for laboratory study of these disorders. Recording continuous EEG in young animal models of seizures and other neurological disorders presents a technical challenge due to the small physical size of young rodents and their dependence on the dam prior to weaning.

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Melanin concentrating hormone (MCH) is a cyclic neuropeptide present in the hypothalamus of all vertebrates. MCH is implicated in a number of behaviors but direct evidence is lacking. To selectively stimulate the MCH neurons the gene for the light-sensitive cation channel, channelrhodopsin-2, was inserted into the MCH neurons of wild-type mice.

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