Neurological Disease Rises from Ocean to Bring Model for Human Epilepsy to Life

Domoic acid of macroalgal origin was used for traditional and medicinal purposes in Japan and largely forgotten until its rediscovery in diatoms that poisoned 107 people after consumption of contaminated mussels. The more severely poisoned victims had seizures and/or amnesia and four died; however, one survivor unexpectedly developed temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) a year after the event. Nearly a decade later, several thousand sea lions have stranded on California beaches with neurological symptoms. Analysis of the animals stranded over an eight year period indicated five clusters of acute neurological poisoning; however, nearly a quarter have stranded individually outside these events with clinical signs of a chronic neurological syndrome similar to TLE. These poisonings are not limited to sea lions, which serve as readily observed sentinels for other marine animals that strand during domoic acid poisoning events, including several species of dolphin and whales. Acute domoic acid poisoning is five-times more prominent in adult female sea lions as a result of the proximity of their year-round breeding grounds to major domoic acid bloom events. The chronic neurological syndrome, on the other hand, is more prevalent in young animals, with many potentially poisoned in utero. The sea lion rookeries of the Channel Islands are at the crossroads of domoic acid producing harmful algal blooms and a huge industrial discharge site for dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDTs). Studies in experimental animals suggest that chronic poisoning observed in immature sea lions may result from a spatial and temporal coincidence of DDTs and domoic acid during early life stages. Emergence of an epilepsy syndrome from the ocean brings a human epilepsy model to life and provides unexpected insights into interaction with legacy contaminants and expression of disease at different life stages.