Patrick Forcelli
Georgetown University School of Medicine – Washington, DC, USA.
Department of Pharmacology & Physiology.
LECTURE: Complementary MRI/DTI and Chemogenetics/Optogenetics to Pinpoint Epileptogenic Networks in Experimental Models of Epilepsy.
Epilepsy is the quintessential circuit disorder, with seizure activity propagating through anatomically constrained pathways. These pathways, necessary for normal sensory, motor, and cognitive function, are hijacked during seizures. Understanding the network architecture at the level of both local microcircuits and distributed macrocircuits may provide new therapeutic avenues for the treatment of epilepsy.
In his lecture, Patrick Forcelli will discuss examples of the application of optogenetics/chemogenetics and MRI/DTI to epilepsy research and a critical discussion will be raised on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, the importance of microcircuit–macrocircuit interactions in seizure mapping.
Moreover, he will address how these approaches allow testing causality within specific seizure pathways for both preclinical and translational applications, and in other areas of neuroscience.