[BIC-announce] FW: Killam Lecture - Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 @ 4:00 pm - Speaker: Dr. Marco de Curtis - Functional Organization of the Parahippocampal Region

[Jennifer Chew, Ms.]

PLEASE DISCARD IF THIS IS A DUPLICATE - JENNIFER  
 
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From: MNISTAFF - Montreal Neurological Institute Staff [mailto:MNISTAFF at LISTS.MCGILL.CA] On Behalf Of Felicia Callocchia, Ms.
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 10:59 AM
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Subject: Killam Lecture - Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 @ 4:00 pm - Speaker: Dr. Marco de Curtis
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KILLAM LECTURE
 
 
Speaker:     Marco de Curtis, Ph.D.
                    Department of Experimental Neurophysiology
                    Istituto Nazionale Neurologico (Milan, Italy)
 
Title:            Functional Organization of the Parahippocampal Region
 
Place:           de Grandpre Communications Centre
 
Date:           Tuesday, January 30, 2007
 
Time:            4:00 pm
 
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We will have Dr. Marco de Curtis presenting at the Killam Lecture Series a talk titled "Functional organization of the parahippocampal region and epileptogenesis". 
 
Dr. de Curtis - who heads the Unit of Experimental Neurophysiology at the Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta - obtained his MD degree from the Università Statale di Milano and completed his training in Neurology at the Università di Parma while working at the Besta Institute with Dr. G. Avanzini on fundamental mechanisms underlying the excitability of thalamic neurons. He moved then to the Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics of New York University where he spent then three years in the laboratory of Dr. R. Llinas to study the physiology of the olfactory and limbic cortices in an isolated in vitro preparation of the whole brain.  Upon his return to Italy he resumed his clinical work with epileptis patients and established a basic science laboratory at the Besta Institute. Indeed, he is the only investigator who routinely employs the isolated in vitro preparation to analyze the mechanisms of epileptiform synchronization and epileptogenesis. 

Dr. de Curtis received the Stiftung Michael Price for epilepsy research in 1999. He is an Editor of Epilepsia and Epilepsy Research. Since 2002 he is also the Co-Director of the Summer Courses at the S. Servolo International School of Neurological Sciences.

Abstract - Seizures correlate with specific neurophysiological patterns generated by excitability changes within the cortical area involved. Cellular networks responsible for seizures onset are still largely unknown. One of the most frequent onset pattern observed during seizures that originate from the mesial temporal lobe is characterized by fast activity at 20-30 Hz that precedes large amplitude bursting discharges commonly associated to epileptiform activity. We demonstrate that fast activity at seizure onset can be reproduced in vitro in the entorhinal cortex by transiently and partially disinhibiting an isolated guinea pig brain with the GABAa receptor antagonist, bicuculline. Cellular patterns associated to ictal onset were characterized in different populations of neurons. Fast activity at 20-30 Hz correlated with rhythmic inhibitory potentials in superficial and deep principal neurons and with a sustained firing in putative interneurons. Sustained and synchronous firing in principal cells ensues within 30-60 seconds and never occurs without the preceding fast activity. The results demonstrate that sustained and diffuse inhibition, without activation of principal cortical neurons, is required for the initiation of an ictal, seizure-like discharge generated in the EC in a model of acute ictogenesis. The data demonstrate that inhibition play a distinctive leading role in establishing the outburst of a focal epileptic seizure.