Naturally Occurring Epilepsy and Status Epilepticus in Dogs

Abstract Naturally occurring epilepsy and status epilepticus in dogs constitute interesting translational models for the assessment of novel therapeutic approaches. Canine patients offer several advantages as compared to induced rodent models including avoidance of a bias by chemical or electrical induction as well as a higher heterogeneity regarding genetic background and environmental influences better mimicking the situation in the human patient population. On the other hand, several challenges and limitations need to be considered for the use of canine patients in therapy and biomarker development. Recently, advances have been made with international proposals for a common definition of canine epilepsy as well as common parameters for diagnosis and outcome assessment. These render an improved basis for the application of standardized inclusion and exclusion criteria and multicenter studies. Moreover, relevant progress has been reported regarding electroencephalographic recordings in canine patients.