Abstracts

Summary: The dentate gyrus has been hypothesized to function as a ‘gate’, regulating relay of pathological, synchronous afferent activity into the hippocampus proper. Despite its prevalence as a concept, there is a relative paucity of information demonstrating this putative function of the dentate in normal brain, and even less that this function is compromised in epilepsy. In this workshop, using a combination of functional imaging, patch clamp recording, gene targeting, and computational approaches, we (Drs. Coulter, Soltesz, Brenner, and Mody) will present studies demonstrating dentate gate function, describe mechanisms mediating this property, and discuss how, when, and why ‘gate’ function is compromised during the disease process underlying epilepsy.