Activation of epileptiform activity by hyperventilation

[Amal Afzal Shaikh]

Hi,
I m currently pursuing my final year M.Tech biomedical project. I want to design a pool of neurons of any part of the brain to show the effect of hyperventilation in the epileptiform activation. I need to prove that the o/p waveform will have freq of 3-4Hz in epileptic conditions. I have started working with network builder…Need help…I was thinking of modeling pyramidal neurons of hippocampus.. imported them from the demo..one netsim neuron to initiate stimulating pulses..

[ted]

That's quite an ambitious project. I would suggest that, instead of digging in with the
Network Builder, your first task is to narrow it down. "Epileptic conditions" seems too
inclusive for fruitful investigation. Because of your focus on 3-4 Hz, I assume that you
are interested in what has been called petit mal or absence epilepsy. By the way, the
last time I read about that disorder, it was thought to be of thalamocortical rather than
hippocampal origin.

I want to design a pool of neurons of any part of the brain to show the effect of hyperventilation in the epileptiform activation.

So you would first have to construct a network model of a particular form of epilepsy
(no mean feat), then examine the effects of hyperventilation on that network model.
This requires you to

• 1. formulate a rather complete conceptual model of a particular form of epilepsy
  2. create a computational implementation of that model and show that it can produce
  ictal (epileptic) and interictal (normal) activity
  3. formulate a conceptual model of the effects of hyperventilation on neuronal function
  4. incorporate those effects into the computational model developed in step 2, and see
  whether this switches network operation from interictal to ictal

Sounds like an outline for a multiyear research project. You might be able to get a running
start by building on somebody else's previous model of epilepsy.

I was thinking of modeling pyramidal neurons of hippocampus.. imported them from the demo

First ask if it is necessary or even useful to have that level of anatomical detail. Traub's
models, for example, have quite simplified morphologies. Other investigators of epilepsy
and other network oscillations have built models whose individual "cells" are single
compartments. If you must have detailed morphology, I wouldn't suggest NEURON's
demo cell--that's from Golgi stained tissue, and has the telltale "severely amputated"
appearance that declares it to be only a small part of the entire cell.