AI Article Synopsis
- Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) has unclear mechanisms for causing seizures, and existing animal models do not effectively mimic these seizures.
- Researchers used in utero electroporation to delete the DEPDC5 gene in the embryonic brains of rats, leading to spontaneous seizures that mirror the key features of FCD IIA.
- This study enhances our understanding of the underlying causes of FCD and sets the stage for developing targeted treatments.
Article Abstract
Epileptogenic mechanisms in focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) remain elusive, as no animal models faithfully recapitulate FCD seizures, which have distinct electrographic features and a wide range of semiologies. Given that DEPDC5 plays significant roles in focal epilepsies with FCD, we used in utero electroporation with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats gene deletion to create focal somatic Depdc5 deletion in the rat embryonic brain. Animals developed spontaneous seizures with focal pathological and electroclinical features highly clinically relevant to FCD IIA, paving the way toward understanding its pathogenesis and developing mechanistic-based therapies. Ann Neurol 2018;83:140-146.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6119494 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ana.25272 | DOI Listing |
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