Dr. Reena Kartha PhD

Drug-resistant epilepsy often starts with an isolated prolonged convulsion in early life, a remission period, followed by recurring intractable seizures. Early life seizures can have both acute and long-lasting effects on the rapidly developing brain. Several studies have investigated changes in microRNAs (miRNAs) in pre-clinical models of status epilepticus, specifically focusing on hippocampus. miRNAs are small RNA molecules that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression. These researchers will use a “two-hit” seizure model to study the epileptogenic effect of early life seizures and to understand the effect of early life seizures on miRNA expression in cortex, hippocampus, and blood.