Presented by Christina Suoto
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurologic disorders
- Affects 1 in 130 people
- 1/3 of epileptics do not respond to current medication
- About 70% of epilepsies do not have single known cause
- Approximately 700 identified gene mutations associated with epilepsy
- CACNA1A is a gene associated with epilepsy due to its function in calcium ion channels
- Cause of familial hemiplegic migraine type 1 (FHM1)
Indicates connection between migraine and seizures
- Previous research that has been done analyzed seizure activity in Drosophila fruit flies using mainly vortex, electroshock, and heat water bath assays
- Mainly focused on electrophysiological behavior instead of pain behavior and susceptibility to epilepsy
The main goal of this project is to be able to adopt a tool to measure seizure-like behavior in Drosophila melanogaster to characterize seizure behavior in a fly model of Familial Hemiplegic migraine
Preview this Research: