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Volume 09
Journal of Alzheimers Disease & Parkinsonism
ISSN: 2161-0460
Epilepsy 2019
Parkinsons Congress 2019
August 29-31, 2019
JOINT EVENT
conferenceseries
.com
August 29-31, 2019 Vienna, Austria
&
5
th
International Conference on
Epilepsy & Treatment
5
th
World Congress on
Parkinsons & Huntington Disease
Possible mechanism of antiepileptic effect of the vagus nerve stimulation in the context of recent results
in sleep research
Ivan N. Pigarev
1
, Marina L. Pigareva
2
and
Ekaterina V. Levichkina
1,3
1,2
Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation
3
The University of Melbourne, Australia
V
agus nerve stimulation is widely used for seizure prevention in otherwise incurable epilepsy. Vagus nerve is
engaged in bidirectional information transfer between internal organs and the brain, but how activity of the
visceral pathways may be related to paroxysmal events in the brain remained unclear. It has been recently shown
that during sleep signals from internal organs are directed towards all areas of the cerebral cortex for comprehensive
analysis and restoration of body functionality. Visceral organs often have rhythmic activity and neuronal messages
from such organs to the cerebral cortex are also rhythmic. Epileptogenic effect of rhythmic sensory stimulation is
well known. Thus it is possible that during developing sleep and in deep sleep rhythmic visceral afferentation may
provoke paroxysmal activity in cerebral cortex. Stimulation of vagus nerve can change the frequency of this seizure-
promoting activity of internal organs from the resonance range thereby blocking paroxysmal activity. Proposed
mechanism of epileptiform activity resulting from visceral signaling do not exclude that paroxysmal activity can be
initiated in otherwise healthy brain. The cause of this type of epileptic events may be related to a deviation from the
normal rhythmical working of some internal organs and transmission of these signals to the cerebral cortex during
local or total sleep.
Biography
Ivan Pigarev, electrophysiologist, graduated from biological department of Moscow State University in 1963. Since that time till the present he is working in the
Institute for Information Transmission problems (Kharkevich Institute) of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, at present as leading scientist. His studies
were mainly concentrated in the field of vision. Since 1991 Pigarev began to investigate sleep. He proposed and confirmed by direct experiments the visceral
theory of sleep according to which cortical sensory areas during sleep switch to processing of the visceral information thus supporting animal homeostasis.
Pigarev has published more than 90 papers.
Ivan N. Pigarev et al., J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism 2019, Volume 09