ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Comput. Neurosci.
This article is part of the Research TopicTheoretical Insights into Neuromodulation and Its Computational Role in Neural NetworksView all articles
Computational Modelling of Resistance to Hormone-Mediated Remission in Childhood Absence Epilepsy
Provisionally accepted
- 1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
- 2Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
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Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) often resolves during adolescence, a period marked by hormonal and neurosteroid changes associated with puberty. However, remission does not occur in all individuals. To investigate this clinical heterogeneity, we developed a simplified thalamocortical model with a layered cortical structure, using deep-layer intrinsically bursting (IB) neurons to represent frontal cortex and regular spiking (RS) neurons modelling the parietal cortex. By simulating two cortical configurations, we explored how variations in neuronal composition and frontocortical connectivity influence seizure dynamics and the effectiveness of allopregnanolone (ALLO) in resolving pathological spike-wave discharges (SWDs) associated with CAE. While both models exhibited similar physiological and pathological oscillations, only the parietal-dominant network (with a higher proportion of RS neurons in layer 5) recovered from SWDs under increased frontocortical connectivity following ALLO administration. These findings suggest that neuronal composition critically modulates ALLO-mediated resolution of SWDs, providing a mechanistic link between structural connectivity and clinical outcomes in CAE, and highlighting the potential for personalized treatment strategies based on underlying network architecture.
Keywords: Childhood absence epilepsy, Conductance-based model, Frontocortical, remission, thalamocortical
Received: 27 Oct 2025; Accepted: 15 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ahmed and Campbell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Maliha Ahmed
Sue Ann Campbell
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