Predicting and treating stress-Induced vulnerability to epilepsy and depression

Christel Becker (1) , Elodie Bouvier , Antoine Ghestem , Safia Siyoucef , Damien Claverie , Francoise Camus , Fabrice Bartolomei , Jean-Jacques Benoliel , Christophe Bernard

1 NPS-07 - Physiopathologie des maladies psychiatriques = Pathophysiology of Psychiatric Disorders

Accumulation of stressful events can render individuals susceptible to develop epilepsy and comorbidities. Whether such vulnerability can be predicted and reversed is not known. Here we show that social defeat, although not producing depression by itself, produced in 50% of rats reduced threshold for status epilepticus (SE), accelerated epileptogenesis, and once epilepsy was induced, depression-like profile and cognitive deficits. Low serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels measured before SE identified this vulnerable population. Treatment with a BDNF analog before SE prevented the occurrence of comorbidities. Thus, vulnerability to comorbidities after epilepsy onset due to unresolved past stressful events may be predicted and reversed. Ann Neurol 2015;78:128-136

Domaines: Neurosciences [q-bio.NC]

Christel Becker, Elodie Bouvier, Antoine Ghestem, Safia Siyoucef, Damien Claverie, et al.. Predicting and treating stress-Induced vulnerability to epilepsy and depression. Annals of Neurology, 2015, 78 (1), pp.128-136. ⟨10.1002/ana.24414⟩. ⟨hal-01542318⟩