Is Burst Activity in Cortical Slices a Representative Model for Epilepsy?

Neocortical slices of mice were evaluated as a potential model for epilepsy. These slices spontaneously generate rhythmically occurring bursts of electrical activity in cortical neurons, which can be simultaneously recorded intracellularly and extracellularly. Blockade of GABAergic inhibition with bicuculline leads to seizure-like repetitive population bursts. The relationship between the activity of individual neurons and population activity during the different types of bursts was quantified for entropy, and information content. Our data reveal an overall decrease in entropy, and loss of information content of the seizure activity, which is similar to findings in clinical recordings from human epileptic seizures