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BACKGROUND: Absence epilepsy (AE) is a systemic disease of the brain, which mainly occurs during childhood and adolescence. The control mechanism is still unclear, and few theoretical studies have been conducted to investigate this. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, we employed external direct voltage stimulation in the subthalamic nucleus to explore mechanisms that inhibit absence seizures. METHODS: All simulation results are obtained by the four-order Runge-Kutta method in the MATLAB environment. The inhibition mechanism can be inferred from the results. RESULTS: We found that the seizures may be inhibited by tuning the strength of the voltage to suitable ranges. This regulation may be achieved through the competition between the inhibitory projections from the basal ganglia to the thalamus. CONCLUSION: Because the mechanism underlying the treatment of epilepsy with a uniform direct current electric field is unclear, we hope that these results can inspire further experimental studies.

Brain banking has a long and distinguished past, contributing greatly to our understanding of human neurological and psychiatric conditions. Brain banks have been operationally diverse, collecting primarily end stage disease, with variable quality clinical data available, yet it is now recognized the most informative brain donations are from those in longitudinally studied cohorts. The Brains for Dementia Research (BDR) cohort and program was for planned brain donation across five UK brain banks and one donation point, with standardized operating procedures, following longitudinal clinical and psychometric assessments for people with no cognitive impairment as well as those with dementia. Lay representatives with experience of dementia were involved from inception of BDR and 74.5% of all enquiries about participation came through routes that were directly attributable to or influenced by lay representatives. Ten years after inception, this ongoing project has received over 700 brain donations from the recruited cohort of 3,276 potential brain donors. At cohort census for this paper, 72.2% of the living cohort have no cognitive impairment by assessment, whereas only 28.3% of the donated cohort were without cognitive impairment. It is important that brain banks are agile and reflect the changing needs of the research community, given that 'big data', readiness cohorts, and GWAS demand large sample numbers of highly characterized individuals to facilitate new approaches and understanding of pathological processes in dementia.