BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Dravet syndrome is a rare and severe type of epilepsy in infants. The heterogeneity in the overall intellectual disability that these patients suffer from has been attributed to differences in genetic background and epilepsy severity. METHODS Eighteen Vietnamese children diagnosed with Dravet syndrome were included in this study. SCN1A variants were screened by direct s...

INTRODUCTION The aim was to examine the influence of the SCN1A gene polymorphism IVS5-91 rs3812718 G>A on the response to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in monotherapy or polytherapy. MATERIAL AND METHODS Two hundred epilepsy patients and 200 healthy subjects were genotyped for SCN1A IVS5-91 rs3812718 G>A polymorphism using TaqMan assay. Patients were divided into drug-responsive and drug-resista...

conclusions these data will be beneficial for designing more advanced antibodies for the recognition of the hbsag in diagnostics. in addition, the results of this study may assist in the design or development of more effective hepatitis b vaccines. results the g145r mutation causes a considerable reduction in the immunogenic activity of the hbsag through a conformational change in the hbsag ant...

Commentary Inward sodium current through specific membrane proteins (channels) constitutes the currency of neuronal firing. The transient voltage-dependent sodium current, I Na , with its all-or-none threshold behavior and rapid activation and inactivation, is responsible for the upstroke of the action potential. A smaller but longer lasting sodium current, carried through the same channels, co...

Familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM) is a rare subtype of migraine with aura. Mutations causing FHM type 3 have been identified in SCN1A, the gene encoding the Nav1.1 Na(+) channel, which is also a major target of epileptogenic mutations and is particularly important for the excitability of GABAergic neurons. However, functional studies of NaV1.1 FHM mutations have generated controversial results...

Childhood epilepsy affects ~0.5-1% in the general population worldwide. Early-onset epileptic encephalopathies are considered to be severe neurological disorders, which lead to impaired motor, cognitive, and sensory development due to recurrence of seizures. Many of the observed epilepsy phenotypes are associated with specific chromosomal imbalances and thus display gene dosage effects, and als...

Familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM) is an autosomal dominant inherited subtype of severe migraine with aura. Mutations causing FHM (type 3) have been identified in SCN1A, the gene encoding neuronal voltage-gated Na(v)1.1 Na(+) channel alpha subunit, but functional studies have been done using the cardiac Na(v)1.5 isoform, and the observed effects were similar to those of some epileptogenic mutat...