Drug-resistant epilepsy associated with peripheral complement decreases and sex-specific cytokine imbalances: a pilot study.

Drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) presents significant challenges in treatment and management. While seizure-related alterations in peripheral immune players are increasingly recognized, the involvement of the immune complement system remains insufficiently explored in DRE. We studied complement components and their relationship to cytokine profiles in serum samples from 46 DRE patients and 45 matched healthy controls.

Sex-Specific Complement and Cytokine Imbalances in Drug-Resistant Epilepsy: Biomarkers of Immune Vulnerability.

Objective: Drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) poses significant challenges in treatment and management. While seizure-related alterations in peripheral immune players are increasingly recognized, the involvement of the complement system, central to immune function, remains insufficiently explored in DRE. This study aimed to investigate the levels of complement system components and their association with cytokine profiles in patients with DRE.

Progressive Dysregulation of Tau Phosphorylation in an Animal Model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

Tau is an intracellular protein known to undergo hyperphosphorylation and subsequent neuro-toxic aggregation in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, tau expression and phosphorylation at three canonical loci known to be hyperphosphorylated in AD (S202/T205, T181, and T231) were studied in the rat pilocarpine status epilepticus (SE) model of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). We measured tau expression at two time points of chronic epilepsy: two months and four months post-SE.

Clinical factors associated with late seizure remission after failed epilepsy surgery.

Background: Some patients who initially fail epilepsy surgery later become seizure-free, but it is not clear how the clinical characteristics of the patients or post-operative modifications of anti-seizure medication (ASM) regimens contribute to late seizure remission.

Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review of patients undergoing epilepsy surgery at the University of Washington Regional Epilepsy Center between 2007 and 2017, including patients receiving neocortical resection, temporal lobectomy, and hippocampal laser interstitial therapy (LITT) ablation. We assessed seizure freedom, ASM changes, seizure frequency at the first and last follow-up, and type of lesion.

HCN Channel Phosphorylation Sites Mapped by Mass Spectrometry in Human Epilepsy Patients and in an Animal Model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

Because hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) ion channels modulate the excitability of cortical and hippocampal principal neurons, these channels play a key role in the hyperexcitability that occurs during the development of epilepsy after a brain insult, or epileptogenesis. In epileptic rats generated by pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus, HCN channel activity is downregulated by two main mechanisms: a hyperpolarizing shift in gating and a decrease in amplitude of the current mediated by HCN channels, I. Because these mechanisms are modulated by various phosphorylation signaling pathways, we hypothesized that phosphorylation changes occur at individual HCN channel amino acid residues (phosphosites) during epileptogenesis.