TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond the hammer and the scalpel
T2 - Selective circuit control for the epilepsies
AU - Krook-Magnuson, Esther
AU - Soltesz, Ivan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/3/27
Y1 - 2015/3/27
N2 - Current treatment options for epilepsy are inadequate, as too many patients suffer from uncontrolled seizures and from negative side effects of treatment. In addition to these clinical challenges, our scientific understanding of epilepsy is incomplete. Optogenetic and designer receptor technologies provide unprecedented and much needed specificity, allowing for spatial, temporal and cell type-selective modulation of neuronal circuits. Using such tools, it is now possible to begin to address some of the fundamental unanswered questions in epilepsy, to dissect epileptic neuronal circuits and to develop new intervention strategies. Such specificity of intervention also has the potential for direct therapeutic benefits, allowing healthy tissue and network functions to continue unaffected. In this Perspective, we discuss promising uses of these technologies for the study of seizures and epilepsy, as well as potential use of these strategies for clinical therapies.
AB - Current treatment options for epilepsy are inadequate, as too many patients suffer from uncontrolled seizures and from negative side effects of treatment. In addition to these clinical challenges, our scientific understanding of epilepsy is incomplete. Optogenetic and designer receptor technologies provide unprecedented and much needed specificity, allowing for spatial, temporal and cell type-selective modulation of neuronal circuits. Using such tools, it is now possible to begin to address some of the fundamental unanswered questions in epilepsy, to dissect epileptic neuronal circuits and to develop new intervention strategies. Such specificity of intervention also has the potential for direct therapeutic benefits, allowing healthy tissue and network functions to continue unaffected. In this Perspective, we discuss promising uses of these technologies for the study of seizures and epilepsy, as well as potential use of these strategies for clinical therapies.
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U2 - 10.1038/nn.3943
DO - 10.1038/nn.3943
M3 - Article
C2 - 25710834
AN - SCOPUS:84923666754
SN - 1097-6256
VL - 18
SP - 331
EP - 338
JO - Nature neuroscience
JF - Nature neuroscience
IS - 3
ER -