The Significance of Sleep Deprivation in the Development of Local Epilepsy from the Point of View of Neuroplasticity

Abstract

Objective. To study the neurological and electrophysiological manifestations of sleep deprivation (SD) in patients with local symptomatic forms of epilepsy and in healthy subjects and to investigate the neuromorphological patterns of SD in experimental conditions. Materials and methods. Complex clinical and electroencephalographic (video-EEG monitoring with sleep traces) studies were performed before and after SD for 48 h in 178 patients with locally originating epilepsy (LOE) and 45 healthy control subjects. Neurohistological and electron microscopic investigations of the brain were performed in rats after 48-h SD. Results and discussion. SD led to increases in epileptiform activity in patients with LOE (with increases in the frequency of epileptic seizures) and the onset of this activity in healthy subjects. Post-SD morphological changes in rat brains consisted of mitochondrial pleioconia, damage to elements of the blood-brain barrier, signs of astrocyte depletion, changes in gliocyte nuclei of the apoptotic and karyorrhectic types, and destruction of synapses; these were evidence of impairment to the mechanisms of neuroplasticity after SD. These results allow SD in patients to be regarded as a factor damaging the CNS and provoking the development of epileptic seizures in epilepsy. SD in experimental animals can be used as a model for further studies of the mechanisms of neuroplasticity.