Cerebellar contribution to absence epilepsy

•Spike and wave discharges occur as a biomarker of hyperstimulation-limited absence seizures.•High GABA control within a thalamocortical network is necessary for absence seizures development.•The cerebellum could be a source of strengthening of GABA inhibition provoking the absence seizures. The new aggregate data analyses revealed the earlier missing role of cerebellum long-term electrical stimulation in the absence epilepsy. Neurophysiologic data gained by authors favor that cerebellar serial deep brain stimulation (DBS) (100 Hz) causes the transformation of penicillin-induced cortical focal discharges into prolonged 3,5–3,75 sec oscillations resembling spike-wave discharges (SWD) in cats. Such SWDs were not organized in the form of bursts and persisted continuously after stimulation. Therefore, the appearance of prolonged periods of SWD is regarded as a tonic cerebellar influence upon pacemaker of SWD and might be caused by the long-lasting DBS-induced increase of GABA-ergic extrasynaptic inhibition in the forebrain networks. The absence seizure facilitation caused by cerebellar DBS was discussed with the reviewed data on optogenetic stimulation, neuronal activity of cerebellar structures, and imaging data.