Distribution and role of metals in sclerotic hippocampi of patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy

Abstract

The accumulating evidence on the relation between the disturbed metal homeostasis and epilepsy urges the need for data regarding the total metal concentrations, as well as metal distribution in the brain itself, in order to indicate where to direct the potential therapy, to metal supplementation or chelation. This paper summarizes our results on the measurements of some important essential metals in hippocampi of patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) who underwent amigdalohippocampectomy. The key findings point out that levels of copper and manganese are deficient in hippocampi of mTLE patients, and that their concentrations correlated positively with neuronal loss in affected regions of sclerotic hippocampus. In addition, the Cu concentration was decreased in the areas of total neuronal loss. Iron and zinc total hippocampal levels were neither accumulated nor deficient compared to control. Our results contribute to deeper insight of metals biology in the epilepsy and may represent the initial point of new and non-invasive therapy of drug resistant epilepsy.