This CURE Epilepsy Award is funded by The Joanna Sophia Foundation.
Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the leading cause of death in people with treatment-resistant epilepsy. SUDEP occurs commonly at night. This is often attributed to SUDEP occurring during sleep; however, emerging data suggest that time-of-day may play an independent role in SUDEP.
Dr. Buchanan’s group will examine whether a signaling molecule called serotonin drives this time-of-day vulnerability to SUDEP. They will eliminate the body’s 24-hour clock or remove serotonin in a mouse model of Dravet Syndrome, an epileptic encephalopathy that has a high SUDEP incidence, and study the effect of these manipulations on the timing of seizure-induced death.
Determining how time-of-day interacts with SUDEP may profoundly impact how SUDEP research is conducted and lead to the development of actionable strategies for reducing SUDEP.
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