2026年10月19日
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arXiv

跨物种 EEG 在癫痫药物筛选中的表现胜过小鼠发作计数

AI 绘制的示意图

小鼠的癫痫发作次数可以减少,但这并不能证明药物纠正了与人类癫痫相关的脑活动。Exin Therapeutics 的作者将小鼠和人类的 EEG 放入一张共同的疾病图谱中,并测试了 10 组模型—药物组合。测得的神经活动变化与已知人类疗效排名的相关性为 0.87。如果前瞻性测试证实这种联系,癫痫试验就可以根据神经状态,而不只是诊断结果,为患者匹配治疗方案。

小鼠在用药后癫痫发作次数减少,但这对判断药物是否能帮助人类患者,仍然说明不了多少。人类癫痫并不是一种单一疾病,而每个小鼠模型只能反映其中一部分。某种治疗可以改善只在小鼠身上观察到的指标,却未必能解决患者真正相关的脑回路问题。因此,药物研发人员仍然主要依赖发作次数和其他相关读数,而这些指标可能在人类身上没有明确的对应物。

为两种大脑建立共同图谱

脑电图(electroencephalography,或 EEG)记录大脑整体的电活动。医生经常用它来诊断癫痫,但 EEG 信号会随着电极、被记录的动物或人、周围环境以及其当时的活动而变化。

研究人员的核心想法,是从这些复杂的信号中建立一张共同图谱。在机器学习中,表征学习指的是把复杂数据压缩成一组更小的坐标,同时保留选定的模式。这里选定的模式是生物学状态:健康活动、疾病活动,以及两者之间的变化。

这张图谱并不假定某一个小鼠模型能够代表所有癫痫患者。相反,它可以显示哪些人类神经状态与哪些小鼠模型相似。在这项癫痫分析中,PTZ 和 AY9944 小鼠与人类失神发作最相似,而 4-AP 小鼠则更多地与强直-阵挛发作和强直发作相对应。

根据大脑活动的移动方向评估药物

作者训练了一个模型,把小鼠和人类的 EEG 放入同一个疾病空间。他们首先在一个更简单的场景中测试这是否可行:人和小鼠接受匹配的声音和图像。六项感觉测试中有五项在图谱中产生了共同方向,但 oddball 测试没有产生共同方向。

随后,他们将有癫痫和无癫痫人群的 EEG 与三种小鼠模型的数据结合起来。模型训练时没有使用接受治疗动物的记录。这一点很重要,因为这样一来,药物测试就可以提出一个新的问题:治疗后,小鼠的活动是否朝着人类健康区域移动?

研究人员把这种移动称为神经救援评分。在 10 组小鼠模型—药物组合中,这一评分与独立评定的药物对人类有效程度排名相一致。它与人类排名的相关性为 0.87。包括发作次数、高振幅时间和处于发作状态的时间在内的传统指标,相关性都较弱。在同一比较中,发作次数的相关性为 0.63,且未通过论文的显著性检验。

这一结果还揭示了一个重要警示。在 AY9944 模型中,噻加宾使活动偏离健康方向。论文指出,噻加宾可能加重患者的失神发作。只奖励可见发作次数减少的方法,可能会漏掉这类失败。

作者还报告了另一项测试,涉及带有 Fmr1 突变的小鼠,以及携带 16p11.2 缺失或重复的人。与对照组相比,这些人类组别都朝着小鼠疾病方向移动,这说明同一种图谱可能连接不同的模型和记录方法。

Refer to caption
Figure 3: Cross-species representation learning resolves conserved epilepsy signatures and model-specific patient heterogeneity. A, Schematic of the cross-species framework, in which human EEG from TEMPLE/TUH is aligned independently with three mechanistically distinct mouse epilepsy models (AY9944, 4-AP and PTZ). B, Schematic of the seizure-specific alignment objective, jointly organizing mouse and human EEG ictal periods to compare shared features. C, Heatmap of cross-species associations between the three mouse epilepsy models and clinically annotated human seizure types. Values indicate standardized model-specific associations, with positive and negative values shown in red and blue, respectively. D, Frequency-dependent changes in spectral power during ictal relative to non-ictal activity in PTZ, AY9944, and 4-AP mice. Pairwise Pearson correlation coefficients between the model-specific spectral profiles are shown above the plot. E, Unified cross-species disease space showing the relative positions of healthy and epileptic human EEG and the three mouse models, illustrating a conserved disease direction together with model-specific structure. F, Heatmap of patient-level affinities to AY9944, PTZ, and 4-AP across 96 human epilepsy patients. Each column represents an individual patient, and values indicate affinity relative to patient controls. G, Ternary plot of the relative affinities of individual human epilepsy patients to the three mouse models. Each point represents one patient, with the three vertices corresponding to AY9944, PTZ, and 4-AP.### 2.3 Cross-species representation learning tracks clinical drug efficacy from mouse neural dynamics in epilepsy models 出处: Cross-species representation learning aligns mouse and human neural dynamics and tracks clinical drug efficacy(arXiv)
Refer to caption
Figure 2: Conventional EEG seizure readouts track human clinical efficacy worse than the cross-species biomarker. (A–E) Each panel plots one mouse EEG readout against frozen human efficacy (ordinal, −-1 to 4) for the same 10 drug–model arms: 5 in 4-AP (triangles), 3 in AY9944 (circles) and 2 in PTZ (squares). Colours mark the drug, as in Figure [4](https://arxiv.org/html/#S2.F4 "Figure 4 ‣ 2.3 Cross-species representation learning tracks clinical drug efficacy from mouse neural dynamics in epilepsy models ‣ 2 Results ‣ Cross-species representation learning aligns mouse and human neural dynamics and tracks clinical drug efficacy"). Each readout was averaged per arm over treated animals and z-scored within model family (4-AP; AY9944 + PTZ). Signs are set so that higher values always mean greater predicted rescue. (A) Number of seizure episodes per mouse in the 30 min after the convulsant. Episodes were detected algorithmically as ≥\\geq4σ\\sigma above the animal’s own pre-drug baseline, lasting ≥\\geq2 s. (B) Fraction of 1 s epochs exceeding 4σ\\sigma of the animal’s own baseline. (C) Mean EEG amplitude shift relative to the animal’s own pre-drug baseline. (D) Mouse-only control: health-directed displacement computed from mouse recordings alone, with no human data. (E) Percentage of the 30 min epoch spent in detected seizures. Grey lines are least-squares fits, shown only as a guide. Insets give the pooled Spearman correlation and PP from a two-sided exact blocked permutation test within the experimental family (all 14,400 relabellings). They also give the within-family correlations. (F) Pooled Spearman correlation of each readout with human efficacy under this identical test, with the cross-species biomarker from Figure [4](https://arxiv.org/html/#S2.F4 "Figure 4 ‣ 2.3 Cross-species representation learning tracks clinical drug efficacy from mouse neural dynamics in epilepsy models ‣ 2 Results ‣ Cross-species representation learning aligns mouse and human neural dynamics and tracks clinical drug efficacy") shown for reference (blue). \*PP << 0.05. None of the EEG readouts reached significance. The best, seizure count, reached ρ\\rho = +0.63 (PP = 0.062). The cross-species biomarker reached ρ\\rho = +0.87 (PP = 0.0039). (G) Pooled Spearman correlation with human efficacy as a function of the number of animals per arm, computed on random subsets of animals within each arm. Agreement with human efficacy increases with group size for the cross-species biomarker but not for the conventional readouts. 出处: Cross-species representation learning aligns mouse and human neural dynamics and tracks clinical drug efficacy(arXiv)

从小鼠笼舍走向患者试验

如果更大的药物组合、独立数据和前瞻性测试能够重复这一结果,研发实验室就可以不再仅仅因为小鼠检测到的癫痫发作次数减少,就推进某种化合物。相反,它们可以询问:经过治疗的小鼠 EEG,是否朝着与目标患者群体相关的人类健康模式移动。

在癫痫诊所里,常规 EEG 最终或许可以将患者定位到某种特定的神经状态附近。这可以帮助研究人员围绕患者所具有的脑回路问题来设计试验,而不只是围绕“癫痫”这个宽泛标签。它也可以帮助研究人员选择与该患者群体最匹配的小鼠模型。

这一未来尚未成为现实。药理学结果来自回顾性分析,只涵盖 10 组组合,而且比较了不同癫痫综合征和临床终点。作者都是 Exin Therapeutics 的员工;其中两人持有公司股权,公司还提交了一项涵盖该方法的临时专利申请。下一项测试,是在尚不知道临床结果之前作出预测,并使用真正涵盖目标疾病状态的人类和动物数据。

来源

arXiv,《跨物种表征学习使小鼠和人类神经动力学相互对应,并追踪临床药物疗效》