[News] Possible cure for some types of epilepsy?

[Endless]

Is this a possible future cure for some types of epilepsy?

Put on your science hats, everybody. It's heavy reading.

Neurons Associated With Epilepsy Rescued By Optimal Modulation Of Ion Channels

New research successfully reverses epilepsy-associated pathology by using a sophisticated single-cell modeling paradigm to examine abnormal cell behavior and identify the optimal modulation of channel activity.... a procedure that may be useful for rescuing function in organs with excitable cells, such as the heart and pancreas.

Ion channels regulate the flow of ions into and out of the cell and are absolutely critical for a wide range of biological processes, including transmission of signals in the nervous system. Disrupting ion channel function can have disastrous consequences. For example, the severe neurological disorder epilepsy is characterized by spontaneous and recurrent seizures that are thought to be linked with ion channel dysfunction.

...the optimization method revealed specific combinations of modulators that reversed pathological changes in KA observed in a patient with epilepsy.

The authors suggest that the optimization procedure may have widespread application. "The method we developed to functionally correct a pathological neuron can be used for other brain diseases where alterations of ion channels are involved,"

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/236230.php

[Nakamova]

Sounds interesting! But so far it's only in the "sophisticated computational modeling" stage -- they haven't tried it on a human yet, or even on an animal. I'm curious as to how it would work on a practical level. After all, anti-epileptic drugs "modulate ion channels" too, but with some obvious drawbacks/side effects...

[epileric]

I've learned to use the term "cure" very reluctantly when referring to epilepsy however I have to admit this does look promising despite being very preliminary.

I found the abstract to the study but one has to be a member to read anything else about it.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...0634951101068X

For those that aren't intimidated by the scientific equations at the top (I just go straight to the text) or scientific jargon this will help explain the details of the study.

http://download.cell.com/biophysj/mm...1068X.mmc1.pdf

[Dutch mom]

I found the abstract to the study but one has to be a member to read anything else about it.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...0634951101068X

I'll get it, I do have legitimate acces to the Science Direct Database.

[Dutch mom]

Sorry, can't post the pdf-file here, it's very copyrighted. I can view it but cannot save or copy from it.