Intracellular pathways associated with neuronal survival and death in epilepsy

Epilepsy has been characterized a disease whose social and occupational behavioural has had devastating economical consequences and is associated with great cumulative brain damage and neurological deficits. From different forms of epilepsy, the most frequent type is temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), being the most common form of drug refractory epilepsy. Although there are a great amount of studies about the mechanisms involved in neuronal damage and death during critical phases of epileptogenesis, it is crucial to construct strategies for neuroprotection that may prevent the development of epilepsy. In this chapter, some molecular mechanisms involved in the neuronal death, which are induced by excitotoxicity phenomena following the signalling pathways activation and studied in animal models under seizure conditions or expressed in the epilepsy are discussed, mainly those as the mitogen-activated protein kinases, Jak/Stat, and Pi3k/Akt pathways those genes responsible to participate in the apoptosis and cell cycle regulation are also analysed. In summary, the structural and molecular changes at cellular level are believed to play a key role in the generation of convulsive seizures and its possible identification should facilitate the develop of potential therapeutic targets heading towards of specific genes, proteins, and signalling pathways altered during the different stages of epileptogenesis process. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. All rights are reserved