Recurrent seizure-like events are associated with coupled astroglial synchronization

Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience

Enikő eIoja¹  Laszlo eHeja¹  Zsolt eSzabó¹  Julianna eKardos¹  Orsolya eKékesi¹ 

[1] Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences;

关键词: Astrocytes;    Epilepsy;    Gap Junctions;    synchronization;    neuro-glia coupling;    Ca2+ imaging;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fncel.2015.00215

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Increasing evidence suggest that astrocytes significantly modulate neuronal function at the level of the tripartite synapse both in physiological and pathophysiological conditions. The global control of the astrocytic syncytium over neuronal networks, however, is still less recognized. Here we examined astrocytic signalling during epileptiform activity which is generally attributed to large-scale neuronal synchronization. We show that seizure-like events in the low-[Mg2+] in vitro epilepsy model initiate massive, long-range astrocytic synchronization which is spatiotemporally coupled to the synchronized neuronal activity reaching its maximum at the electrographic tonic/clonic transition. Cross-correlation analysis of neuronal and astrocytic Ca2+ signalling demonstrates that high degree of synchronization arises not only among astrocytes, but also between neuronal and astrocyte populations, manifesting in astrocytic seizure-like events. We further show that astrocytic gap junction proteins contribute to astrocytic synchronization since their inhibition by carbenoxolone or Cx43 antibody increased the interictal interval and in 41 % of slices completely prevented recurrent seizure-like activity. In addition, carbenoxolone also induced unsynchronized Ca2+ transients associated with decreasing incidence of epileptiform discharges afterwards. We propose therefore that local, unsynchronized astrocytic Ca2+ transients inhibit, while long-range, synchronized Ca2+ signalling promotes recurrent seizure-like events.

【 授权许可】

Unknown