Decrease in Synaptic Transmission Can Reverse the Propagation Direction of Epileptiform Activity in Hippocampus In Vivo

1 Neural Engineering Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; and 2 Zhejiang University, College of Life Science, Hangzhou, Peoples Republic of China Submitted 9 June 2004; accepted in final form 15 October 2004 Most types of epileptiform activity with synaptic transmission have been shown to propagate from the CA3 to CA1 region in hippocampus. However, nonsynaptic epileptiform activity induced in vitro is known to propagate slowly from the caudal end of CA1 toward CA2/CA3. Understanding the propagation modes of epileptiform activity, and their causality is important to revealing the underlying mechanisms of epilepsy and developing new treatments. In this paper, the effect of the synaptic transmission suppression on the propagation of epilepsy in vivo was investigated by using multiple-channel recording probes in CA1. Nonsynaptic epileptiform activity was induced by calcium chelator EGTA with varied concentrations of potassium. For comparison, disinhibition synaptic epileptiform activity was induced by picrotoxin (PTX) with or without partial suppression of excitatory synaptic transmission. The propagation velocity was calculated by measuring the time delay between two electrodes separated by a known distance. The results show that in vivo nonsynaptic epileptiform activity propagates with a direction and velocity comparable to those observed in in vitro preparations. The direction of propagation for nonsynaptic activity is reversed from the PTX-induced synaptic activity. A reversal in propagation direction and change in velocity were also observed dynamically during the process of synaptic transmission suppression. Even a partial suppression of synaptic transmission was sufficient to significantly change the propagation direction and velocity of epileptiform activity. These results suggest the possibility that the measurement of propagation can provide important information about the synaptic mechanism underlying epileptic activity. Address for reprint requests and othercorrespondence: D. M. Durand, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, 112 Wickenden Bldg., Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44106 (E-mail: dxd6{at}case.edu )