AUTHOR=Landi Silvia , Petrucco Luigi , Sicca Federico , Ratto Gian Michele TITLE=Transient Cognitive Impairment in Epilepsy JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience VOLUME=11 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2018.00458 DOI=10.3389/fnmol.2018.00458 ISSN=1662-5099 ABSTRACT=

Impairments of the dialog between excitation and inhibition (E/I) is commonly associated to neuropsychiatric disorders like autism, bipolar disorders and epilepsy. Moderate levels of hyperexcitability can lead to mild alterations of the EEG and are often associated with cognitive deficits even in the absence of overt seizures. Indeed, various testing paradigms have shown degraded performances in presence of acute or chronic non-ictal epileptiform activity. Evidences from both animal models and the clinics suggest that anomalous activity can cause cognitive deficits by transiently disrupting cortical processing, independently from the underlying etiology of the disease. Here, we will review our understanding of the influence of an abnormal EEG activity on brain computation in the context of the available clinical data and in genetic or pharmacological animal models.