Kindling 4

This is the proceedings of the fourth in a series of inter national gatherings on kindling held on the University of British Columbia campus, June 15-17, 1989. Since the last gath ering in 1985, kindling continues to attract an ever-increasing number of investigators as reflected by the phenomenal increase in the number of kindling-related research reports. No other acute or chronic model has been exploited so extensively using electrophysiological, pharmacological, biochemical and behav ioural approaches involving a variety of brain sites and ani mal species. The continuing search, during the past few years, for the mechanism underlying the enduring change induced by kindling is beginning to shed some light on aspects of its molecular basis and to suggest the future direction of research. The late Graham Goddard, the original kindler, would have been delighted with this development. We were all shocked and saddened by his tragic death, but his spirit is very much alive among all of us who gathered together to share new information and collectively reassess the present state of knowledge at this symposium. I must say that we miss him very, very much. We know he is happy in his heaven knowing that he accomplished more in a short lifetime than most and that his love for mankind, and life's challenges, remain as a legacy, and goal, for us all.

The last Kindling Conference was organized by Dr. Juhn Wada and held at the Univer sity of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C. , in 1989. In the intervening years, research on kin dling has proceeded at an explosive pace and significant advances have been made in our understanding of the molecular biological, anatomical, and physiological substrates of kin dling, as well as in our appreciation of the age-dependent effects and complex behavioral consequences of kindling, its sensitivity to drugs, and its relevance to the clinical epilepsies. In order to review these developments and to provide researchers with an opportunity to in teract face to face and discuss the issues that preoccupy us all, we organized the Fifth Interna tional Conference on Kindling, in Victoria, B. C. , in the summer of 1996. Most of the stalwarts in kindling research were invited, as were a number of investigators whose research on kindling has become prominent in the past few years. We continue to miss the late Graham Goddard, the discoverer of kindling, and were saddened by the recent death of Eric Lothman, a prolific researcher and clinician who would have been a prominent participant. We were deeply disturbed to learn of the death of Frank Morrell, one of the earliest kindlers and an eminent neurologist, who died several months after our conference.

H.H. Jasper, A.A. Ward, A. Pope and H.H. Merritt, chair of the Public Health Service Advisory Committee on the Epilepsies, National Institutes of Health, published the first volume on Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies (BME) in 1969. Their ultimate goal was to search for a "better understanding of the epilepsies and seek more rational methods of their prevention and treatment." Since then, basic and clinical researchers in epilepsy have gathered together every decade and a half with these goals in mind -- assessing where epilepsy research has been, what it has accomplished, and where it should go. In 1999, the third volume of BME was named in honor of H.H. Jasper. In line with the enormous expansion in the understanding of basic epilepsy mechanisms over the past four decades, this fourth edition of Jasper's BME is the most ambitious yet. In 90 chapters, the book considers the role of interactions between neurons, synapses, and glia in the initiation, spread and arrest of seizures. It examines mechanisms of excitability, synchronization, seizure susceptibility, and ultimately epileptogenesis. It provides a framework for expanding the epilepsy genome and understanding the complex heredity responsible for common epilepsies as it explores disease mechanisms of ion channelopathies and developmental epilepsy genes. It considers the mechanisms of conditions of epilepsy comorbidities. And, for the first time, this 4th edition describes the current efforts to translate the discoveries in epilepsy disease mechanisms into new therapeutic strategies. This book, considered the 'bible' of basic epilepsy research, is essential for the student, the clinician scientist and all research scientists who conduct laboratory-based experimental epilepsy research using cellular, brain slice and animal models, as well as for those interested in related disciplines of neuronal oscillations, network plasticity, and signaling in brain strucutres that include the cortex, hippocampus, and thalamus. In keeping with the 1969 goals, the book is now of practical importance to the clinical neurologist and epileptologist as the progress of research in molecular genetics and modern efforts to design antiepileptic drugs, cures and repairs in the epilepsies converge and impact clinical care.