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Class was interesting on Thursday. We got pretty far in our “battery” discussion. The topic that struck me the most fascinating dealt with leaky regions of the membrane. I explored this on the internet and found an article titled “Leaky Sodium Channel Makes Brain Prone to Seizures”. Christoph Lossin and his team in the Division of Genetic Medicine, Center for Molecular Neurosciences at Vanderbilt constructed sodium channels that are either normal or that contain mutant genetic material from people with GEFS+. What they found was a persistent "leak" of sodium through the mutant channels increasing excitability of the neurons and making them more likely to fire, causing a seizure. According to Gregory L. Barkley, MD, chair-elect of the Epilepsy Foundation's professional advisory board, "This is an exciting demonstration of a mechanism of epilepsy in brain cells. It is important confirming evidence showing how one inherited defect in sodium channels favors abnormal firing patterns in the brain and increases the likelihood of epilepsy. I just thought this was an important finding that maybe we could discuss in class next week.
http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/epilepsyusa/holden.cfm