![]() ![]() However, these postictal states are often undetectable and generally do not last as long as the periods of confusion following seizures that occur in the temporal lobes. ![]() A brief period of confusion known as a postictal state may sometimes follow a seizure occurring in the frontal lobes. Affected persons may or may not be aware that they are behaving in an abnormal manner, depending on the patient and type of seizure. In some cases, uncontrollable laughing or crying may occur during a seizure. ĭuring the onset of a seizure, the patient may exhibit abnormal body posturing, sensorimotor tics, or other abnormalities in motor skills. Due to the lack of knowledge surrounding the functions associated with the frontal lobes, seizures occurring in these regions of the brain may produce unusual symptoms which can often be misdiagnosed as a psychiatric disorder, non-epileptic seizure or a sleep disorder. The onset of a seizure may be hard to detect since the frontal lobes contain and regulate many structures and functions about which relatively little is known. The symptoms and clinical manifestations of frontal lobe epilepsy can differ depending on which specific area of the frontal lobe is affected. Partial seizures occurring in the frontal lobes can occur in one of two different forms: either “focal aware”, the old term was simple partial seizures (that do not affect awareness or memory) “focal unaware” the old term was complex partial seizures (that affect awareness or memory either before, during or after a seizure). It is the second most common type of epilepsy after temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and is related to the temporal form in that both forms are characterized by partial (focal) seizures. Giraldez emphasized that the mechanism of action of the estrogenic compounds in zebrafish is still unknown and further studies in mice are a critical next step before this work can be applied to humans.Extratemporal epilepsy, focal epilepsyįrontal lobe epilepsy ( FLE) is a neurological disorder that is characterized by brief, recurring seizures arising in the frontal lobes of the brain, that often occur during sleep. “This research helps scientists understand the function of an autism risk gene in brain development, which is important for understanding the biology of autism,” Hoffman said. ![]() “These compounds did not act like a sedative, rather they reversed the abnormal behavior in a specific manner,” Giraldez said. They found that drugs that act like estrogens were able to restore normal activity levels at night in the mutant fish. The team compared the behavior of normal fish exposed to hundreds of approved drugs to the behavior of fish carrying the mutation and predicted which drugs could trigger or suppress the abnormal behavior. Mutations in zebrafish cntnap2 result in a loss of inhibitory neurons in the developing brain and cause the fish to become hyperactive at night, they found. ![]() The team studied the effect of disrupting this gene in zebrafish, which are transparent and allow scientists to visualize key processes during brain development. A mutation in this gene in some Amish families has previously been shown to cause a form of autism and epilepsy. The research team led by Ellen Hoffman, assistant professor at the Yale Child Study Center, along with Giraldez, Matthew State at the University of California-San Francisco, and Jason Rihel at University College London - focused on the gene CNTNAP2. “Our study shows the strength of using zebrafish mutants as a platform to identify compounds with relevance to autism, though there is much more work to do before this can be applied to humans.” “We were very surprised by this finding,” said Antonio Giraldez, professor of genetics and co-senior author of the paper. The effect of a female hormone intrigued scientists because autism is four times more common in males than females. Gene expression patterns in a zebrafish with autism risk gene.Ī Yale-led team of scientists found that estrogens could reverse abnormal behavior in zebrafish carrying a mutation in a gene strongly associated with autism and seizures in humans, they reported Jan. ![]()
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