Assessing the effects of Neuropeptide Y in drug-resistant epilepsy

Epilepsy is one of the most common and serious brain condition characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. In most cases (about 70%) epilepsy can be controlled by one or multiple antiepileptic drugs. Unfortunately that leaves about third of the patients that do not respond to any of the current therapies. The only treatment option is for those patients to undergo surgery to remove the damaged part of the brain. To date a lot of research has been focused on finding an alternative therapy for these patients. During epilepsy, brain’s capacity to recover form an injury is compromised as the chemicals, known as neuropeptides, involved in its repair are lost. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is one of the neuropeptides involved in protecting the brain against seizures. One approach to reactivate this essential repair response is by adding these protective chemicals back into the injured brain. A number of studies have developed ways to deliver these neuropeptides into the injured brain. Most of the delivery systems however, are not ideal for the use in the clinic as they contain viruses that can have undesirable effects in patients. The objective of this study is to find an alternative way of delivering these neuropeptides to minimize undesired effects. A potential solution to minimize unwanted side effects could be to utilize stem cell as delivery systems. The proposed project will explore the effects of genetically engineered human neural progenitors overexpressing Neuropeptide Y on seizure frequency and duration in an animal model of temporal lobe epilepsy. It is envisaged that the findings of this project will be translated into a clinical study in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy to provide another more effective treatment option.