MIGRAINE AND EPILEPSY: LOOKING FOR A COMMON PATHOPHYSIOLOGICAL MODEL.

Abstract

This contribution reports about the results gathered from in-silico experiments testing the feasibility of a research program based upon a common pathophysiological mechanism for migraine and epilepsy. In a rst set of experiments, the Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from couples of corresponding electrodes in the two cerebral emispheres, as well as from couples of continguous electrodes in the left and right emisphere, were systematically correlated. In both cases, the existence of ordered distributions of activity patterns in the EEG signals from migranious and epileptic subjects was qualitatively assessed. In a subsequent and crucial set of experiments, we were able to obtain some spatially ordered and oscillating synchronization patterns of virtual neurons distributed over a bidimensional region, by means of a multi-agent simulation environment (Netlogo). On the basis of such results, a further development of our research program including the enrichment of the data set and the consideration of other powerful simulation approaches, e.g. Articial Neural Network (ANN) or Genetic Algorithms (GA), seems in the good track of realizing a realistic simulation of the Cortical Spreading Depression Waves, potentially useful even for clinical purposes.