Animal models for mesiotemporal lobe epilepsy: The end of a misunderstanding? Les modeles animaux d'epilepsie mesiotemporale : la fin d'un malentendu ?

The fact that epilepsy consists in multiple heterogeneous syndromes with different etio-logiesanddifferentsymptomsisinsufficiently takenintoaccount incurrentanimalmodels.This is in particular the case when modeling mesiotemporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) for whichclinical, electrophysiological, histological and pharmacological features have been welldescribed in the clinic but only partially reproduced in most rodent models. In this review,we report the data of our recent survey of european neurologists with expertise in epilepsy.The answers of 82 of them (out of 258) indicated that seizures with mild behavioral signs,hippocampal sclerosis and focal discharges were the three most critical features to beconsidered when developing an animal model of MTLE. We then examined how thesefeatures are reproduced in three different types of animal models of MTLE depending ontheir induction: (i) generalized convulsive status epilepticus; (ii) hyperthermic seizures inimmature animals and (iii) focal status epilepticus. Among them, only rodent models result-ing from the induction of a focal status epilepticus appear to present most characteristics ofhuman MTLE.# 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.