Tipik absans epilepsi'de astrositlerin rolü

Astrocytes play an important role in the modulation of synaptic transmission in terms of GABA clearance/turnover and even though they are electrically unexcitable, with their vast astrocyte-to-astrocyte network, they might modulate the spread of cortically-drived spike-and-wave discharges. The aim of the study is to show that astrocytes play an important role in the pathophysiology of epilepsy and have a central role in the modulation of spike-and- wave discharges. We hypothesize that exciting the activity of astrocytes in the thalamus is sufficient to intervene the ongoing seizures in real-time. For this, we stimulated the astrocytes specifically by using optogenetic tool of exciting virus and simultaneously record the electrophysiological activity of the cortical neurons in vivo. Further, we observed histological changes in fluorescent microscopy. In this study, we used genetic absence epileptic rats and WAG-Rij rats to investigate our hypothesis and reveal any differences between these strains.