Prevention of Post-Traumatic Epilepsy by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation.

摘要

We are employing the rat lateral fluid percussion injury (LFPI) model of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) to test the antiepileptogenic and neuroprotective capacity of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). tDCS is a well-tolerated and portable technique for focal suppression of cortical activity. We hypothesize that cathodal tDCS will mitigate excitotoxic neuronal injury acutely after TBI to by reducing neuronal firing, interfering with excitatory synaptic transmission and limiting neuronal exposure to excess glutamate. We hypothesize further that these effects of tDCS will reduce the risk of epileptogenesis after TBI. We aim to test whether acute tDCS in the LFPI model of TBI (1) reduces excess glutamate release, (2) reduces the extent of apoptotic cell death, and (3) improves the neurologic outcome as measured by severity of post-traumatic epilepsy. We will test such neurprotective and antiepileptogenic tDCS potential with stimulation delivered at specified timings after TBI. tDCS is already in limited human clinical use and there are established safety guidelines. Therefore, if our hypotheses are confirmed, this work could be promptly translated to human trials and lead to the development of a practical rapidly-deployed intervention for prevention of TBI-induced epilepsy.