The Protective Effect of Female Hormones against Post-Traumatic Epilepsy in Sprague Dawley Rats

Post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) accounts for 20% of symptomatic epilepsy. Despite multiple studies have identified male sex as one of the risk factors of PTE, female has always been underrepresented in PTE clinical trials and preclinical studies. Therefore, there is currently a lack of evidence identifying the biomarkers that may serve the protective effect in female against PTE development. Therefore, we aim to characterise the levels of female hormones utilising the animal model of TBI to identify the relevance of female hormones in the development of PTE. In this study, we aim to characterise the changes of female hormones using multiple biochemical assays including ELISA, Western blotting and SIMOA , which not only allows us to identify the relevant female hormones and correlate the change of biomarkers to the development of epilepsy. By joining this project, you will be able to learn multiple sophisticated procedure essential to becoming a neuroscientist: 1) small animal neurosurgery; 2) EEG recording and analysis; 3) biochemical assays and analysis and more.