Abstract
Epilepsy, which is characterized by spontaneous recurrent seizures, is one of the most common and serious chronic neurological diseases in the world. 30% patients failed to control seizures with multiple anti-seizure epileptic drugs, leading to serious outcomes. The pathogenesis of epilepsy is very complex and remains unclear. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), as a member of the neurotrophic factor family, is considered to play an important role in the survival, growth and differentiation of neurons during the development of the central nervous system. Recent years, a series of studies have reported that BDNF can maintain the function of the nervous system and promotes the regeneration of neurons after injury, which is believed to be closely related to epileptogenesis. However, two controversial views (BDNF inhibits or promotes epileptogenesis) still exist. Thus, this mini-review focuses on updating the new evidence of the role of BDNF in epileptogenesis and discussing the possibility of BDNF as an underlying target for the treatment of epilepsy.
Highlights
Epilepsy, which currently afflicts approximately 0.5–1% of population in the world (Fisher et al, 2014; Chen L. et al, 2020), is a chronic progressive central nervous system (CNS) disorder with a sudden abnormal discharge of neurons in the brain
BDNF is closely related to epilepsy, since its upstream related genes and downstream receptors are found to be involved in the epileptogenesis
BDNF is considered as a potential therapeutic target but not a drug and the modulation of BDNF and its upstream or downstream molecules by other agents may have certain clinical feasibility
Summary
Epilepsy, which currently afflicts approximately 0.5–1% of population in the world (Fisher et al, 2014; Chen L. et al, 2020), is a chronic progressive central nervous system (CNS) disorder with a sudden abnormal discharge of neurons in the brain. The clinical treatment of epilepsy is mostly dependent on anti-seizure drugs (ASDs). About 30% patients still failed to control seizures after regular treatment with multiple ASDs, who may gradually develop into intractable epilepsy patients (Wang and Chen, 2019). There is an urgent need for seeking new therapeutic drugs or strategies. Since the pathogenesis of epilepsy is not yet clarified clearly, more and more researchers focus on the mechanism research of epilepsy and expect to find new therapeutic targets via further understanding the underlying mechanisms of several complex neural circuits (Wang et al, 2017; Xu et al, 2019) and associated molecules (Wang and Chen, 2019; Xu et al, 2021)
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