BASIC MECHANISMS OF SEIZURES

这是一个建议，继续我们的研究癫痫发作的基本机制。 本申请描述了一个重新组织的程序项目，包括 三个组成部分的研究项目和一个支持放射自显影核心 这些项目是密切相关的，有一个共同的总体目标， 描述正常和癫痫脑的功能解剖。 各组成项目的主要目标是：1）确定 乳头体及其在脑内的联系在病理生理学上 负责启动、传播和/或终止 全身性癫痫发作; 2）以确定如何实验局灶性感觉运动 癫痫发作通过大脑中的局部和长回路传播， 兴奋性随时间增加;和3）生理学表征 感觉、运动、联想和语言皮层 目的是提高癫痫的外科治疗水平， 用于定位人脑中癫痫发作病灶的综合方法， 确定手术治疗癫痫对局部 与癫痫灶相关的代谢异常。 放射自显影 核心将保持和发展定量图像分析技术， 放射自显影实验和开发新的放射性示踪剂， 数学模型和定量放射自显影方法 癫痫发作 该计划汇集了几个优秀的和富有成效的基本和 具有解剖学领域技能和兴趣的临床科学家， 生物化学、生理学、药理学、放射学、神经学和 神经外科 我们的研究应该能大大改善 了解正常大脑和两者的病理生理机制 实验和临床癫痫发作。 这些信息最终将 提高癫痫患者的诊断和治疗水平。

This is a proposal to continue our studies of basic mechanism of seizures. This application describes a re-organized program project consisting of three component research projects and a support autoradiography core project which are closely inter-related and have a common overall goal to characterize functional anatomy normal and epileptic brain. The major objectives of the component projects are 1) to define the role(s) of the mammillary bodies and their connections in brain in pathophysiologic processes responsible for initiation, propogation and/or termination of generalized seizures; 2) to determine how experimental focal sensorimotor seizures travel through local and long circuits in brain causing an increase in excitability over time; and 3) to physiologically characterize sensory, motor, associative and language cortex in human brain for the purpose of improving surgical treatment of epilepsy, to develop more comprehensive methods for localizing seizure foci in human brain, and to determine the effect of surgical treatment of epilepsy on regional metabolic abnormalities associated with seizure foci. The autoradiography core will maintain and develop quantitative image analysis techniques for autoradiographic experiments and develop new radioactive tracers, mathematical models and quantitative autoradiographic methods for studying seizures. The program brings together several excellent and productive basic and clinical scientists with skills and interests in the fields of anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, radiology, neurology and neurological surgery. Our research should provide greatly improved understanding of normal brain and pathophysiological mechanisms of both experimental and clinical seizures. This information will eventually improve diagnosis and treatment of the patient with epilepsy.