Modelli in vitro di neuroinfiammazione alternativi all’uso di animali per lo studio dell’epilessia: ruolo dei neurosteroidi

The project aims at developing a model that allows the transfer from experiments involving animals to the alternative use of cells derived from the central nervous system. The use of LPS-treated human microglia, astrocyte, and hippocampal neuron cell lines will be necessary to create an in vitro model of neuroinflammation. This will be characterized and will provide a platform for evaluating the action of various neurosteroids (NS) in a context of neuroinflammation. The results obtained using NS will be compared with those obtained using drugs of choice for the treatment of epilepsy. The availability of the three cell types will allow us to evaluate the potential influence of microglia and astrocytes treated in different ways on hippocampal neurons through non-contact co-culture. This approach could influence, on the one hand, the synthesis of NS by each of these different cell types and, on the other, how pro-inflammatory glial cells could be modulated by NS.