New Study Focuses On Link Between Gliomas and Seizures

A team of researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has targeted the relationship that exists between primary brain tumors and epileptic seizures. The findings of the study, which were published in the Sept. 11, 2011, issue of Nature Medicine, show malignant glioma cells produce sizable amounts of the neurotransmitter glutamate – amounts much greater than the amounts neurons normally use to communicate with each other – into healthy neurons around the tumor.

According to the article, researcher Harald Sontheimer, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology at UAB and lead investigator in the study, said “These tumor cells produce an enormous amount of glutamate, 100-fold beyond normal. This leads to a state of hyper-excitability that overwhelms healthy neurons and leads to their death.”

Sontheimer continued by saying that the death of neurons in proximity to the glioma gives the malignant cell room to grow and expand into the space previously occupied by the neurons.

To read more about the study, click here.

A PubMed link to an abstract on the paper also can be accessed by clicking here.