Neurobiology research has used an essentially reductionist approach for many years, dissecting out the brain in more simple elements. Recent technical advances, like systems biology, have made now possible to embrace a more holistic vision and try to tackle the complexity of the system. In this short review, we describe how these approaches, in particular analyses or gene networks and of microRNAs, may be useful for epilepsy research. We will describe and discuss recent studies that illustrate how these research approaches can lead to the identification of therapeutic targets and pharmacological strategies to prevent or treat some forms of epilepsy. We aim to show that studying epilepsy and its comorbidities within a complex system framework is a promising integration to the traditional reductionist approaches, and that it will become more and more important in the future for developing new therapies. This article is part of the Special Issue "NEWroscience 2018."

中文翻译：

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基因网络和 microRNA：治疗癫痫及其合并症的前景和挑战

多年来，神经生物学研究一直使用本质上是还原论的方法，将大脑分解为更简单的元素。最近的技术进步，如系统生物学，现在可以采用更全面的愿景并尝试解决系统的复杂性。在这篇简短的评论中，我们描述了这些方法，特别是分析或基因网络和 microRNAs，如何可能对癫痫研究有用。我们将描述和讨论最近的研究，这些研究说明这些研究方法如何导致确定治疗目标和药理学策略以预防或治疗某些形式的癫痫。我们的目标是表明在复杂的系统框架内研究癫痫及其合并症是对传统还原论方法的有希望的整合，并且在未来开发新疗法将变得越来越重要。本文是特刊“NEWroscience 2018”的一部分。