Effect of neural precursor cell transplantation on anxiety and epileptic seizures

• Grant number: 10/00120-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: April 01, 2010
• End date: August 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Physiology - Physiology of Organs and Systems
• Principal Investigator: Beatriz de Oliveira Monteiro
• Grantee: Beatriz de Oliveira Monteiro
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Epilepsy is characterized by spontaneous and recurrent seizures that develop from certain areas of the central nervous system (Dichter, 1997). Paroxysmal neuronal activity may be generated by defects in surrounding inhibition. Therefore, dysfunction or loss of GABAergic interneurons might play an important role in the development of epilepsy or behavioral disorders, such as anxiety that appeared as a co-morbidity of epilepsy (Vazquez e Devinsky, 2003; Perini e Mendius, 1984; Altshuler et al, 1990). Recent studies have shown that neuronal precursor cells from mesial ganglionic eminence (MGE) have the ability to migrate and to differentiate into functional inhibitory interneurons after transplanted in the mouse brain (Álvarez-Dolado et al., 2006). Thus, transplantation of neuronal precursor cells derived from MGE into the postnatal central nervous system could modify the neuronal circuitry involved in neurological diseases in which inhibitory synaptic function is altered, such as epilepsy and anxiety. The aim of this project is to evaluate the effects of MGE transplanted cells on anxiety and seizure susceptibility. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

KAREN Y. YAMADA; SUSAN Y. SATAKE; JULIANA C. PERRY; KARINA O. GARCIA; VÂNIA D'ALMEIDA; SERGIO TUFIK; BEATRIZ M. LONGO; REGINA C. BARBOSA-SILVA. Effect of postnatal intermittent hypoxia on locomotor activity and neuronal development in rats tested in early adulthood. Psychology & Neuroscience, v. 7, n. 2, p. 125-130, 2014-05-27. (09/03616-7, 10/00120-8, 09/07278-9, 98/14303-3, 09/07347-0)