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Immunohistochemical localization of somatostatin expressing interneurons in healthy and kainate treated rats

Sejdini, Klaus (2016) MOBY01 20152
Degree Projects in Molecular Biology
Popular Abstract
Somatostatin cells survive in resistant epilepsy

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder affecting approximately 1% of the world population annually. It is characterized by persistent episodes of seizures affecting either the whole brain or some parts of it. Secondary epilepsy can be resolved by treating the primary causes but idiopathic (unknown cause) epilepsy has no cure. The treatment in this case relies to control the seizure events with anti epileptic drugs. In some cases, seizure events cannot be controlled with medicaments and removal of the epileptic brain tissue is the only method which may help the patients. This type of epilepsy is known to be pharmacoresistant and studies have estimated the prevalence to be as high as 40%,... (More)
Somatostatin cells survive in resistant epilepsy

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder affecting approximately 1% of the world population annually. It is characterized by persistent episodes of seizures affecting either the whole brain or some parts of it. Secondary epilepsy can be resolved by treating the primary causes but idiopathic (unknown cause) epilepsy has no cure. The treatment in this case relies to control the seizure events with anti epileptic drugs. In some cases, seizure events cannot be controlled with medicaments and removal of the epileptic brain tissue is the only method which may help the patients. This type of epilepsy is known to be pharmacoresistant and studies have estimated the prevalence to be as high as 40%, occurring mostly in patients suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy. Unlike generalized epilepsy, which affects the cerebral cortex, temporal lobe epilepsy affects the brain structures responsible for attention, memory and feelings such as hippocampus and amygdala.
Previous studies made on the cellular composition of hippocampus in epilepsy have shown that there is a profound decrease of inhibitory neurons that control the activity of excitatory neurons. One type of cells that is affected is the somatostatin positive interneuron (SST). To investigate whether there are enough of the SST cells surviving in epilepsy, the cells were located in healthy and epileptic rats by using a labeling technique based on antibodies known as immunohistochemistry. The results not only show that the SST cells survive the epileptic environment but also that the cells enlarge their bodies.
These results are important because we may now use special light-sensitive proteins to control the activity of the excitatory neurons via the somatostatin expressing cells. By doing so, we can shed light to the mechanisms behind seizure initiation, the neural network responsible for the epileptic activity and pharmacoresistance in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Supervisor: Tania Ramos Moreno
Degree Project in Molecular Biology 30 credits
Epilepsy Center, Division of Neurology, LUH, Wallenberg Neuroscience Center, 2016
Biomedical center, Lund University
Department of Biology, Lund University (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Sejdini, Klaus
supervisor
organization
course
MOBY01 20152
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
language
English
id
8820682
date added to LUP
2016-02-29 14:22:04
date last changed
2016-02-29 14:22:04
@misc{8820682,
  author       = {{Sejdini, Klaus}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Immunohistochemical localization of somatostatin expressing interneurons in healthy and kainate treated rats}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}