Multiple Control of Absence Seizures in the Brain: A Computational Study

As a typical generalized epilepsy, absence epilepsy can be easily identified during seizures (AS) based on the electrophysiological hallmark that synchronous 2–4 Hz spike and wave discharges (SWDs) widely observed in clinical electroencephalography (EEG). Inspired by animal experimental studies AS may regulated neural circuits within outside corticothalamic (CT) network, we employed computational models to further dissect underlying biophysical mechanisms. Simulations show CT enhancing thalamic feed-forward inhibition effectively abate SWDs. Interestingly, inhibitions mediated GABA\(_{\text {A}}\) {B}}\) pathway from reticular nucleus (TRN) specific relay nuclei of thalamus (SRN) play different roles controlling AS. Specifically, unlike inhibition, has more influences dominant frequency oscillations. On other hand, basal ganglia (BG) output pathways substantia nigra pars reticulate (SNr) TRN SRN have been demonstrated contribute suppressing Note control mechanism SNr-TRN is mainly due collision TRN, whereas weakened responsible for suppression via SNr-SRN pathway. More importantly, competition between two induce BG bidirectionally Besides these observations, found also terminated newly inhibitory pallido-cotrical our model. These findings highlight close associations with including internal external pathways, functional regulating provide novel insight into treatment epilepsy.