Internal medicine

Neuroscience

Status epilepticus

Epilepsy

Respiratory arrest

Apnea

Psychiatry

Psychology

Anticonvulsant

Seizure threshold

Amygdala

Epileptogenesis

Anesthesia

Medicine

Epilepsy & Behavior

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the most common cause of death in patients with refractory epilepsy. Human studies and animal models suggest that respiratory arrest is the initiating event leading to death in many cases of SUDEP. It has previously been reported that the onset of apnea can coincide with the spread of seizures to the amygdala, and apnea can be reproduced by electrical stimulation of the amygdala. The aim of the current work was to determine if the amygdala is required for seizure-induced respiratory arrest (S-IRA) in a mouse model of SUDEP.

Amygdala lesions reduce seizure-induced respiratory arrest in DBA/1 mice