Professor Chen Zhong, from College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, published a research paper titled "Wide therapeutic time-window of low-frequency stimulation at the subiculum for temporal lobe epilepsy treatment in rats" in the renowned journal "Neurobiology of Disease" (IF = 5.4) in November 2012. This is the first study reporting the therapeutic effect of low-frequency electrical stimulation at the subiculum on temporal lobe epilepsy in rats and its characteristic of wide time-window, suggesting that the subiculum may be a potential intervention target for intractable epilepsy drug .   

Low-frequency stimulation (LFS) is a new approach for the treatment of epilepsy in recent years. It has advantages of little trauma and few side effects. Previous studies from Prof. Chen’s lab had found that the therapeutic effectiveness of LFS is closely related to the target stimulated and stimulation frequency. Moreover, there exists a therapeutic time-window in the antiepileptic effect of LFS. Therefore, it is extremely important to search a target for LFS with reliable therapeutic effect as well as a wider therapeutic time-window from the clinical point view. By means of electrophysiology, behavior and EEG analysis, and molecular biotechnology, the present study found that LFS of the subiculum has an antiepileptic effect on several model of epilepsy. Moreover, stimulation of subiculum had a wider therapeutic time-window than other targets such as the amygdala and the entorhinal cortex. This study provided an important experimental and theoretical basis for LFS in clinical application and new targets for antiepileptic drug.  

Investigating the molecular mechanisms of the development and treatment of epilepsy is the important research interest in Professor Chen’s lab. This work was independently completed by the researchers at the Institution of Pharmacology, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University. Co-first authors of this article are Dr. Kai Zhong and Dr. Deng-Chang Wu. This study was funded by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation,the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Key Project of Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation.