Fellowship / Hunt: Posttraumatic Epileptiform Activity Following Controlled Cortical Impact in Mice

Every 23s, an American wstains a traumatic brain injury (rBI), and TBI is one of the inost coIhmon causes for developing epilepsy. Many p!ttients suffer from seizures and developposttraumatic epilepsy after TB1, and head injuTYpatients often do not respond well to anti-epileptic drug treauncnts. The mechanisms by which brain injury leads to the onset of epilepsy are not weIl understood. One reason for this is that wrimal models for posttraumatic epilepsy have not been well developed. The goal of this research proposal is to identify cellular and functioltlll changes which occur in a controlled cortical impact mouse model of head injury that are also associated with changes seen in temporallob~ epilepsy. Cnderstanding the mechanisms by which brain injury calL~es seizures may help to promote more effective Ihempelltic strutegies for treating posttraumatic epilepsy.