For the first time… simulating the state of the brain during an epileptic seizure

Russia – A scientific team with the participation of specialists from three countries, namely Russia, India and Belgium, developed for the first time a mathematical model of the state of the human brain during an epileptic attack.

As reported by the press service of the “Priorities 2030” program of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, within the framework of which the research is being conducted, the results will help expand understanding of the disease and will contribute to its treatment.

“The advantage of the model is that it takes into account multiple connections, including interactions between neurons, auxiliary brain cells and glial cells,” the press service noted.

Scientists from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in Kaliningrad, Russia, the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, and the Belgian Catholic University in Leuven have developed a model that simulates the production of brain activity during an epileptic seizure. Its peculiarity is that it examines multiple connections, including interactions between neurons, helper brain cells, and glial cells.

According to scientists, excitatory and inhibitory communication signals between neurons balance each other when the brain works normally. However, in the event of disorders such as epilepsy, excitatory impulses form in different parts of the brain, causing more neurons to be activated. As a result, an entire area of ​​the brain becomes overactive, and the patient experiences convulsions. Until now, scientists have not been able to fully describe the process of development of this disease.

Now researchers have obtained a model whose components form a network similar to the network of neurons and glial cells in the brain. Scientists have established communication between the model’s elements so that signals propagate through it automatically and simultaneously. This behavior of the model reflects hypersynchronous activity that arises during a patient having an epileptic seizure.

Alexander Kramov, senior researcher at the Baltic Center for Neurotechnology and Artificial Intelligence at Kant University, said: “In the future, we plan to improve our model by studying more realistic situations of modeling neurons in the brain.” We are also interested in studying more precise interactions between different brain cells to understand the processes that occur in the epileptic brain. “We hope that our model will be of interest when testing the effect of different antiepileptic drugs on the brain.”

It is noteworthy that the results of the research were published in the scientific journal Physical Review.

Source: TASS