Animal Models Using In Epilepsy Researches

Abstract

Epilepsies are the second most common neurological disorder next to stroke and there are over fifty million epileptic people worldwide. Epilepsy is not a disease, but a collection of diverse syndromes. There are different types of epilepsy that is modulated by different mechanisms and originated from diverse brain regions. A rational drug therapy is not possible for treatment of the epilepsies. Various anticonvulsant agents to protect occurring or spreading the abnormal discharges in the brain are used in treatment of epilepsies. Because the central mechanisms that mediate the epilepsies have not been clearly understood yet and a longterm therapy by giving chronically anticonvulsants may cause some adverse effects, developing the new more selective and effective drugs for treatment of the epilepsies is very important. Various epileptic animal models have been developed for experimental epilepsy studies since ethical considerations get a limitation the neuroscientist's research possibilities on intact human brain. Thus, a lot of animal models of epilepsies have been currently used in epilepsy studies. Epilepsy is a scientific area that basically involves in neurology. However, especially in many in vivo epileptic models of animals, researches observe the behaviors of the animals during epileptic seizure far evaluating the intensity of the seizure and investigating the effect of any drugs on the seizure. In that point, epilepsy also involves in experimental psychopharmacology. In this study, it has been aimed to give current information on the animal models of epilepsy and how can be performed experimental studies on these models.