Objective:

Background:

Epilepsy, a neurological condition characterized by the emergence of spontaneous seizures, is one of the world’s most prevalent chronic neurological disorders. To treat it, anti-seizure medication is readily available and used, but approximately one-third of epilepsy patients still experience persistent symptoms. Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), for example, is a drug-resistant form of epilepsy, and surgical ablation of the anterior hippocampus and amygdala has become standard practice to treat the disorder. However, about one-third of patients that undergo surgery still lack adequate seizure control. Recently, the fasciola cinereum (FC) region of the brain was identified as an important seizure node in both mice and humans with epilepsy, yet little is known about the region’s properties.

Design/Methods:

Brain slices collected from wild-type mice were stained for 3 different antibodies: NeuN (labels the nuclei of all neurons), GABA (labels inhibitory cells that express the GABA neurotransmitter), and PCP4 (labels the expressed cells in the FC). The slices were imaged through ZEISS software. These images were used to characterize the amount and relative location of GABAergic neurons within the FC.

Results:

Amongst the tissue stained, similar amounts of neurons exist within the FC. On average, approximately 21% of neurons within the region are GABAergic neurons. Most of these GABAergic neurons are localized within the primary cell layer, with the next highest concentrated location being the ventricle side, and the last being the area closer to the cortex.

Conclusions:

Conducting additional experiments to explore the various types of GABAergic neurons within the FC will provide deeper insights on the characterization of the area. This will provide a foundation for understanding how the region can potentially function as an interventional target in epilepsy.