Dossi Elena, Blauwblomme Thomas, Nabbout Rima, Huberfeld Gilles, Rouach Nathalie
Neuroglial Interactions in Cerebral Physiopathology, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, CNRS UMR 7241, INSERM U1050, Collège de France.
Infantile Epilepsies & Brain Plasticity, INSERM U1129, PRES, Paris Descartes University, Sorbonne Paris Cité, CEA; Neurosurgery Department, Necker Hospital, AP-HP, Paris Descartes University.
J Vis Exp. 2014 Oct 26(92):e51870. doi: 10.3791/51870.
Epilepsy, affecting about 1% of the population, comprises a group of neurological disorders characterized by the periodic occurrence of seizures, which disrupt normal brain function. Despite treatment with currently available antiepileptic drugs targeting neuronal functions, one third of patients with epilepsy are pharmacoresistant. In this condition, surgical resection of the brain area generating seizures remains the only alternative treatment. Studying human epileptic tissues has contributed to understand new epileptogenic mechanisms during the last 10 years. Indeed, these tissues generate spontaneous interictal epileptic discharges as well as pharmacologically-induced ictal events which can be recorded with classical electrophysiology techniques. Remarkably, multi-electrode arrays (MEAs), which are microfabricated devices embedding an array of spatially arranged microelectrodes, provide the unique opportunity to simultaneously stimulate and record field potentials, as well as action potentials of multiple neurons from different areas of the tissue. Thus MEAs recordings offer an excellent approach to study the spatio-temporal patterns of spontaneous interictal and evoked seizure-like events and the mechanisms underlying seizure onset and propagation. Here we describe how to prepare human cortical slices from surgically resected tissue and to record with MEAs interictal and ictal-like events ex vivo.
癫痫影响着约1%的人口，是一组以癫痫发作周期性发生为特征的神经系统疾病，癫痫发作会扰乱正常脑功能。尽管使用目前可用的针对神经元功能的抗癫痫药物进行治疗，但仍有三分之一的癫痫患者存在药物抵抗性。在这种情况下，手术切除产生癫痫发作的脑区仍然是唯一的替代治疗方法。在过去十年中，对人类癫痫组织的研究有助于了解新的致痫机制。事实上，这些组织会产生自发性发作间期癫痫放电以及药理学诱导的发作期事件，这些都可以用经典电生理技术进行记录。值得注意的是，多电极阵列（MEA）是一种微制造设备，其中嵌入了一系列空间排列的微电极，它提供了独特的机会来同时刺激和记录场电位以及来自组织不同区域的多个神经元的动作电位。因此，MEA记录为研究自发性发作间期和诱发的癫痫样事件的时空模式以及癫痫发作起始和传播的潜在机制提供了一种极好的方法。在这里，我们描述了如何从手术切除的组织中制备人类皮质切片，以及如何在体外使用MEA记录发作间期和癫痫样事件。
