Status Epilepticus (SE) is often a neurological emergency characterized by abnormally sustained, longer than habitual seizures. The new ILAE classification reports that SE “…can have long-term consequences including neuronal death, neuronal injury…depending on the type and duration of seizures”. While it is accepted that generalized convulsive SE exerts detrimental effects on the brain, it is not clear if other forms of SE, such as focal non-convulsive SE, leads to brain pathology and contributes to long-term deficits in patients. With the available clinical and experimental data, it is hard to discriminate the specific action of the underlying SE etiologies from that exerted by epileptiform activity. This information is highly relevant in the clinic for better treatment stratification, which may include both medical and surgical intervention for seizure control. Here we review experimental studies of focal SE, with an emphasis on focal non-convulsive SE. We present a repertoire of brain pathologies observed in the most commonly used animal models and attempt to establish a link between experimental findings and human condition(s). The extensive literature on focal SE animal models suggest that the current approaches have significant limitations in terms of translatability of the findings to the clinic. We highlight the need for a more stringent description of SE features and brain pathology in experimental studies in animal models, to improve the accuracy in predicting clinical translation.

癫痫持续状态(SE) 通常是一种神经系统急症，其特征是异常持续、持续时间长于习惯性癫痫发作。新的 ILAE 分类报告称 SE“……可能产生长期后果，包括神经元死亡、神经元损伤……取决于癫痫发作的类型和持续时间”。虽然普遍的惊厥性 SE 对大脑产生有害影响是公认的，但尚不清楚其他形式的 SE，如局灶性非惊厥性 SE，是否会导致脑部病变并导致患者的长期缺陷。根据现有的临床和实验数据，很难区分潜在 SE 病因的具体作用与癫痫样活动所产生的作用。该信息在临床上与更好的治疗分层高度相关，其中可能包括用于控制癫痫发作的药物和手术干预。在这里，我们回顾了局灶性 SE 的实验研究，重点是局灶性非惊厥性 SE。我们提出了在最常用的动物模型中观察到的一系列脑部病变，并试图在实验结果和人类状况之间建立联系。关于局部 SE 动物模型的大量文献表明，目前的方法在将研究结果转化为临床方面存在很大的局限性。我们强调需要在动物模型的实验研究中更严格地描述 SE 特征和脑病理学，以提高预测临床转化的准确性。