A Murine Model For Preventing Postmalarial Epilepsy

The rates of childhood epilepsy in malaria prone regions of the developing world are substantially higher than in industrialized countries. Although epilepsy is well described as a consequence of cerebral malaria, we do not understand how to prevent these large numbers of people, mostly children, from developing epilepsy after cerebral malaria. This project represents a multidisciplinary effort of an epilepsy specialist, a malaria biologist, an experimental physicist, a malaria clinician, and an optical imaging expert towards exploring several likely mechanisms at preventing post-malarial epilepsy. Our translational approach focuses on fusing fundamental biology and clinical principles to help guide future human clinical trials.