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Review
. 2022 Nov 9:13:436-468.
doi: 10.1016/j.ibneur.2022.10.012. eCollection 2022 Dec.

The impact of early-life environment on absence epilepsy and neuropsychiatric comorbidities

Karine Sarkisova  1 , Gilles van Luijtelaar  2
Affiliations
Review

The impact of early-life environment on absence epilepsy and neuropsychiatric comorbidities

Karine Sarkisova et al. IBRO Neurosci Rep. .

Abstract

This review discusses the long-term effects of early-life environment on epileptogenesis, epilepsy, and neuropsychiatric comorbidities with an emphasis on the absence epilepsy. The WAG/Rij rat strain is a well-validated genetic model of absence epilepsy with mild depression-like (dysthymia) comorbidity. Although pathologic phenotype in WAG/Rij rats is genetically determined, convincing evidence presented in this review suggests that the absence epilepsy and depression-like comorbidity in WAG/Rij rats may be governed by early-life events, such as prenatal drug exposure, early-life stress, neonatal maternal separation, neonatal handling, maternal care, environmental enrichment, neonatal sensory impairments, neonatal tactile stimulation, and maternal diet. The data, as presented here, indicate that some early environmental events can promote and accelerate the development of absence seizures and their neuropsychiatric comorbidities, while others may exert anti-epileptogenic and disease-modifying effects. The early environment can lead to phenotypic alterations in offspring due to epigenetic modifications of gene expression, which may have maladaptive consequences or represent a therapeutic value. Targeting DNA methylation with a maternal methyl-enriched diet during the perinatal period appears to be a new preventive epigenetic anti-absence therapy. A number of caveats related to the maternal methyl-enriched diet and prospects for future research are discussed.

Keywords: Absence epilepsy; Animal epilepsy model; Early environment; Epigenetic modification; Neuropsychiatric comorbidity; WAG/Rij.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

ga1
The impact of early-life environment on absence seizures and psychiatric comorbidities.
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The epigenetic basis for the development of normal (indicated in green) and pathologic (indicated in yellow) phenotypes. See details in the text.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Nutritional methyl group donors and cofactors of the one-carbon cycle (indicated in red) and the DNA methylation. SHMT – serine hydroxymethyltransferase, BH2 – quinonoid dihydrobiopterin, BH4 – tetrahydrobiopterin, MTHF – methyltetrahydrofolate, MTHFR – methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Summarizing of conclusions and perspectives for future research.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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