Arslan Mutluay, Üstün Canan, Coşkun Ayşe Nur, Çelik Hasan, Yalçın Hacı Nadir, Karaismailoğlu Eda, Sertoğlu Erdim, Ünay Bülent
Department of Pediatric Neurology, University of Health Sciences, Gülhane Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, the Republic of Türkiye.
Department of Pediatric Neurology, Ankara Etlik City Hospital, Ankara, the Republic of Türkiye.
Heliyon. 2024 Dec 14;11(1):e41145. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e41145. eCollection 2025 Jan 15.
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases in the pediatric population. Orexins are excitatory peptides and associated with energy homeostasis, eating and drinking behaviors, sleep regulation, sleep-wake periods, analgesia, and cognitive activities such as attention, learning, and memory. The aim of this study was to reveal the relationship between plasma orexin levels and seizures in pediatric epilepsy patients with seizures, epilepsy patients in remission, and healthy control group with similar demographic characteristics.
The study was conducted between December 2021 and December 2022 in the Department of Pediatric Neurology of a tertiary hospital. 30 epilepsy patients who had a seizure in the last 24 h, 30 epilepsy patients in remission, and 17 healthy controls were included in the study. The Human Orexin-A Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Kit was used to measure serum orexin-A level. In the ERG and CG, blood samples were obtained during routine controls.
No statistically significant difference was found between serum orexin levels of acute seizure group (ASG), epilepsy in remission group (ERG), and control group (CG). In the ASG, no significant difference was found when orexin levels were compared according to the time of blood sampling after seizure (0-8 h, 8-16 h, 16-24 h). In patients with seizures, the orexin levels of patients with focal seizures were compared with those of patients with generalized seizures. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups. Patients with seizures were evaluated according to electroencephalography (EEG) and cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings, and no statistically significant difference was found between orexin levels between the groups.
Our study is the first to evaluate orexin levels in children with epilepsy. Further research is needed to evaluate the role of orexins in the pathophysiology of epilepsy. With the clear relationship between orexin and epilepsy, antiorexinergic drugs can be used in the treatment of epilepsy.
癫痫是儿科人群中最常见的神经系统疾病之一。食欲素是兴奋性肽，与能量稳态、饮食行为、睡眠调节、睡眠-觉醒周期、镇痛以及注意力、学习和记忆等认知活动有关。本研究的目的是揭示血浆食欲素水平与癫痫发作的儿科癫痫患者、缓解期癫痫患者以及具有相似人口统计学特征的健康对照组之间的关系。
本研究于2021年12月至2022年12月在一家三级医院的儿科神经科进行。研究纳入了30名在过去24小时内有癫痫发作的癫痫患者、30名缓解期癫痫患者和17名健康对照者。使用人食欲素-A酶联免疫吸附测定试剂盒测量血清食欲素-A水平。在急诊室（ERG）和门诊（CG），在常规检查期间采集血样。
急性发作组（ASG）、癫痫缓解期组（ERG）和对照组（CG）的血清食欲素水平之间未发现统计学上的显著差异。在ASG中，根据癫痫发作后采血时间（0-8小时、8-16小时、16-24小时）比较食欲素水平时，未发现显著差异。在癫痫发作患者中，将局灶性癫痫发作患者的食欲素水平与全身性癫痫发作患者的食欲素水平进行比较。两组之间没有统计学上的显著差异。根据脑电图（EEG）和头颅磁共振成像（MRI）结果对癫痫发作患者进行评估，各亚组之间的食欲素水平没有统计学上的显著差异。
我们的研究首次评估了癫痫患儿的食欲素水平。需要进一步研究以评估食欲素在癫痫病理生理学中的作用。鉴于食欲素与癫痫之间的明确关系，抗食欲素能药物可用于癫痫的治疗。
