Controlling absence seizures by deep brain stimulus applied on substantia nigra pars reticulata and cortex

Epilepsy is a typical neural disease in nervous system, and the control of seizures is very important for treating the epilepsy. It is well known that the drug treatment is the main strategy for controlling the epilepsy. However, there are about 10-15 percent of patients, whose seizures cannot be effectively controlled by means of the drug. Alternatively, the deep brain stimulus (DBS) technology is a feasible method to control the serious seizures. However, theoretical explorations of DBS are still absent, and need to be further made. Presently, we will explore to control the absence seizures by introducing the DBS to a basal ganglia thalamocortical network model. In particular, we apply DBS onto substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) and the cortex to explore its effects on controlling absence seizures, respectively. We can find that the absence seizure can be well controlled within suitable parameter ranges by tuning the period and duration of current stimulation as DBS is implemented in the SNr. And also, as the DBS is applied onto the cortex, it is shown that for the ranges of present parameters, only adjusting the duration of current stimulation is an effective control method for the absence seizures. The obtained results can have better understanding for the mechanism of DBS in the medical treatment.