Commentary: Epileptic seizure clustering and accumulation at transition from activity to rest in GAERS rats

We have read with interest the paper of Tran et al. entitled “Epileptic seizure clustering and accumulation at transition from activity to rest in GAERS rats” published on 24th January 2024 in Frontiers in Neurology.

The authors describe the clustering and accumulation of seizures with spike-wave discharges in a time window of transition from activity to rest states in GAERS rats, a well-known model for absence epilepsy. They conclude that “these results point to mechanisms that control behavioral states as determining factors of seizure occurrence.”

While their findings on seizure clustering and predictors are interesting and warrant further analysis, we are surprised to note that for defining activity-rest states, they have not used the most obvious tool—electroencephalography. Hence, they may have missed the most important aspect of their finding in the generation of absence seizures. Specifically, the transition period from wakefulness to NREM sleep has been established as the “behavioral state” favoring the appearance of absences, as evidenced by previously cited works. The role of NREM sleep, the switch of the reticular nucleus of the thalamus to its burst-firing mode related to NREM, is known to be the “favorite” period of absences in humans. Thus, their question on “the behavioral state” that may promote absences has long been answered (1–3).

Author contributions

PH: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization. AS: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

References

1. Drinkenburg WHIM, Coenen AML, Vossen JMH, Van Luijtelaar ELJM. Spike-wave discharges and sleep-wake states in rats with absence epilepsy. Epilepsy Res. (1991) 9:218–24. doi: 10.1016/0920-1211(91)90055-K

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

2. Halász P. Are absence epilepsy and nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy system epilepsies of the sleep/wake system? Behav Neurol. (2015) 2015:231676. doi: 10.1155/2015/231676

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

3. Bagshaw A, Hale IR, de Campos BM, Cendes F. Sleep onset uncovers thalamic abnormalities in patients with idiopathic generalised epilepsy. NeuroImage Clin. 16:8 doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.07.008

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar