Altered HCN channel expression and function in acquired epilepsy

Funding Activity

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Funded Activity Summary

About 100 000 people currently suffer from epilepsy in Australia and of these about one third are poorly controlled with current anti-epileptic drugs. It is therefore important to continue to develop novel modes of treatment for this debilitating disease. This projects investigates an ion channel, known as the HCN channel, that is thought to be involved in making a brain epileptic. We explore how changes in this channel can make a brain more excitable. Also, our group is the first in the world to discover a mutation in this channel that is linked to epilepsy. We will also investigate how this mutation changes the channel properties to make a brain more likely to be epileptic. The HCN channel is an important target for developing anti-epileptic drugs. Understanding how changes in HCN channels make nerve cells and therefore nerve cell networks more excitable will help us develop better strategies for designing anti-epileptic drugs.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2007

End Date: 01-01-2009

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $279,912.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Cellular Nervous System

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Epilepsy | HCN channel | epilepsy | hippocampus | ion channels | nervous systems disorder | neuropharmacolgy | susceptibility gene | temporal lobe epilepsy