Drug-resistant epilepsy remains a major clinical challenge, and sleep loss increases its risk. We found that chronic sleep loss reduces BMAL1, a protein that helps regulate sleep. In experiments with rats and brain cells, altering BMAL1 levels changed P-glycoprotein via the mTOR pathway. These changes in P-glycoprotein then influenced the response to anti-seizure medicines. The study showed that targeting BMAL1 may be a new treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy.
Wang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.