Epilepsy involves a diverse group of abnormalities, including molecular and cellular disorders. These abnormalities prove to be associated with the changes in local excitability and synaptic dynamics. Correspondingly, the epileptic processes including onset, propagation and generalized seizure may be related with the alterations of excitability and synapse. In this paper, three regions, epileptogenic zone (EZ), propagation area and normal region, were defined and represented by neuronal population model with heterogeneous excitability, respectively. In order to describe the synaptic behavior that the strength was enhanced and maintained at a high level for a short term under a high frequency spike train, a novel activity-dependent short-term plasticity model was proposed. Bifurcation analysis showed that the presence of hyperexcitability could increase the seizure susceptibility of local area, leading to epileptic discharges first seen in the EZ. Meanwhile, recurrent epileptic activities might result in the transition of synaptic strength from weak state to high level, augmenting synaptic depolarizations in non-epileptic neurons as the experimental findings. Numerical simulation based on a full-connected weighted network could qualitatively demonstrate the epileptic process that the propagation area and normal region were successively recruited by the EZ. Furthermore, cross recurrence plot was used to explore the synchronization between neuronal populations, and the global synchronization index was introduced to measure the global synchronization. Results suggested that the synchronization between the EZ and other region was significantly enhanced with the occurrence of seizure. Interestingly, the desynchronization phenomenon was also observed during seizure initiation and propagation as reported before. Therefore, heterogeneous excitability and short-term plasticity are believed to play an important role in the epileptic process. This study may provide novel insights into the mechanism of epileptogenesis.

癫痫涉及多种异常，包括分子和细胞疾病。这些异常被证明与局部兴奋性和突触动力学的变化有关。相应地，包括发作、传播和全面性发作在内的癫痫过程可能与兴奋性和突触的改变有关。在本文中，三个区域，即癫痫区（EZ），传播区和正常区，分别定义和表示具有异质兴奋性的神经元群体模型。为了描述在高频脉冲序列下强度增强并在短期内保持在高水平的突触行为，提出了一种新的依赖于活动的短期可塑性模型。分叉分析表明，过度兴奋的存在会增加局部区域的癫痫发作易感性，导致癫痫放电首先出现在 EZ。同时，反复发作的癫痫活动可能导致突触强度从弱状态转变为高水平，作为实验结果，增加了非癫痫神经元的突触去极化。基于全连接加权网络的数值模拟可以定性地展示传播区和正常区被EZ连续吸收的癫痫过程。此外，使用交叉递归图来探索神经元群体之间的同步，并引入全局同步指数来衡量全局同步。结果表明，随着癫痫发作的发生，EZ与其他区域的同步性显着增强。有趣的是，如前所述，在癫痫发作开始和传播过程中也观察到了去同步现象。因此，异质兴奋性和短期可塑性被认为在癫痫过程中起重要作用。该研究可能为癫痫发生机制提供新的见解。