The Effect of Stress and Hypercortisolaemia on Limbic Epileptogenesis & Affective Disorder.

Funded Activity Summary

This project has the potential to provide novel insights about the causal connections between stress, psychiatric illness (specifically anxiety and depression) and temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) - the most common form of medical refractory epilepsy in the community. Up to 50% of patients with TLE suffer from anxiety and-or depression. Until relatively recently it had been widely assumed that this was a consequence of the chronic epileptic condition. However, recent evidence suggests that there is a bi-directional relationship, with the psychiatric conditions and stress also acting to aggravate the seizures and even predispose to the development of the epilepsy itself. Apart from gaining insights into causes of TLE, anxiety and depression, this framework has potential public health relevance suggesting approaches to the eventual primary and secondary prevention of both MTLE and its associated psychiatric co-morbidities, a neglected area at present. The use of an animal model allows investigation of aetiological processes that extend over the lifetime, which is exceptionally difficult to achieve in humans. Retrospective studies, such as case-control studies, although an indispensable research methods, are subject to bias and imprecision when it comes to measuring remote past exposures to stress, abuse, and deprivation. If the results of these experiments are consistent with our hypotheses, a very strong case would exist for exploring this relationship in human studies. The data would also provide a strong rationale for more aggressive detection and treatment of these psychiatric co-morbidities in TLE patients, in order to potentially modify the progression of the disorder as well as improve the quality of life of sufferers. The results of intervention studies in animal models may suggest specific mode of treatment to achieve this.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2006

End Date: 01-01-2008

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $380,714.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Psychiatry (incl. Psychotherapy)

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

Anxiety | Depression | Neuroanatomy | Neurology | Neuropharmacology | Neuropsychiatry | Neuroscience | Stress | Temporal lobe epilepsy

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