Journal
NEUROIMAGE
Volume 58, Issue 1, Pages 50-59Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.05.046
Keywords
Epilepsy; Cerebral cortex; Flavoprotein fluorescence; Propagation; Human
Funding
- MEXT, Japan [21300134]
- Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan [19A-6, 21B-5]
- University of Niigata
- Tsukada Medical Fellowship
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [21300134, 22700376] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Seizure activities often originate from a localized region of the cerebral cortex and spread across large areas of the brain. The properties of these spreading abnormal discharges may account for clinical phenotypes in epilepsy patients, although the manner of their propagation and the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. In the present study we performed flavoprotein fluorescence imaging of cortical brain slices surgically resected from patients with partial epilepsy caused by various symptomatic lesions. Elicited neural activities in the epileptogenic tissue spread horizontally over the cortex momentarily, but those in control tissue taken from patients with brain tumors who had no history of epilepsy demonstrated only localized responses. Characteristically, the epileptiform propagation comprised early and late phases. When the stimulus intensity was changed gradually, the early phase showed an all-or-none behavior, whereas the late phase showed a gradual increase in the response. Moreover, the two phases were propagated through different cortical layers, suggesting that they are derived from distinct neural circuits. Morphological investigation revealed the presence of hypertrophic neurons and loss of dendritic spines, which might participate in the aberrant activities observed by flavoprotein fluorescence imaging. These findings indicate that synchronized activities of the early phase may play a key role in spreading abnormal discharges in human cortical epilepsies. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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