2026年10月19日
Technology Watch

從實驗室到產業,追蹤新技術的路徑

← 回首頁

arXiv

跨物種 EEG 在癲癇藥物篩選中勝過小鼠發作次數

AI 繪製的示意圖

小鼠的發作次數可以減少,卻不能證明藥物已修正與人類癲癇相關的腦部活動。Exin Therapeutics 的作者將小鼠和人類的 EEG 放入一個共用的疾病圖譜,測試 10 組模型—藥物組合;測得的神經活動變化與已知人類療效的排名相關性為 0.87。如果前瞻性測試確認這項關聯,癲癇試驗就能根據神經狀態,而不只是診斷,來配對患者和治療方式。

小鼠服藥後發作次數變少,仍不能告訴我們太多這種藥是否會幫助人類。人類癲癇不是單一疾病,而每個小鼠模型只呈現其中一部分。治療可能改善小鼠特有的測量結果,卻沒有修正患者真正重要的腦迴路問題。因此,藥物開發者仍仰賴發作次數及相關讀數,而這些讀數可能在人類身上找不到明確對應。

兩種大腦的共用圖譜

腦電圖(EEG)記錄大腦整體的電活動。醫師經常使用 EEG 診斷癲癇,但訊號會隨著電極、接受記錄的動物或人、周遭環境,以及他們正在做的事而改變。

研究人員的核心想法,是從這些混雜的訊號建立一個共用圖譜。在機器學習中,表徵學習是把複雜資料壓縮成較少的一組座標,同時保留選定的模式。在這裡,選定的模式是生物狀態:健康活動、疾病活動,以及兩者之間的變化。

這個圖譜不假設某一個小鼠模型能代表每一名癲癇患者。相反地,它可以顯示哪些人類神經狀態類似哪些小鼠模型。在癲癇分析中,PTZ 和 AY9944 小鼠最接近人類的失神發作,而 4-AP 小鼠則更接近強直陣攣發作和強直發作。

以大腦活動的移動方向衡量藥物

作者訓練了一個模型,把小鼠和人類的 EEG 放入同一個疾病空間。他們先在較簡單的情境中測試這是否可行:人類和小鼠接受相對應的聲音與影像。六項感官測試中有五項在圖譜中產生了共用方向,但 oddball 測試沒有。

接著,他們使用有癲癇和沒有癲癇的人類 EEG,以及三種小鼠模型的 EEG。模型訓練時沒有使用接受治療動物的記錄。這一點很重要,因為如此一來,藥物測試就能提出一個新的問題:治療後,小鼠的活動是否朝向人類健康區域移動?

研究人員將這種移動稱為神經救援分數。在十組小鼠模型—藥物組合中,這項分數與一個獨立評定的藥物對人類有效程度排名一致。它與人類排名的相關性為 0.87。包括發作次數、高振幅時間和發作中時間在內的傳統測量,關聯性都較弱。在相同比較中,發作次數的相關性為 0.63,且未通過該論文的顯著性檢驗。

這項結果也呈現了一個重要警示。在 AY9944 模型中,tiagabine 讓活動遠離健康方向。論文指出,tiagabine 可能使患者的失神發作惡化。只獎勵可見發作減少的方法,可能會錯過這類失敗。

作者也報告了另一項測試,涉及帶有 Fmr1 突變的小鼠,以及帶有 16p11.2 缺失或重複的人類。與對照組相比,這些人類群組朝向小鼠疾病方向移動,顯示同一類圖譜可以連結不同模型和記錄方法。

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 出處: 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. 出處: Cross-species representation learning aligns mouse and human neural dynamics and tracks clinical drug efficacy(arXiv)

從小鼠籠舍走向患者試驗

如果這項結果在更大型的藥物組合、獨立資料和前瞻性測試中仍然成立,開發實驗室就可以停止僅僅因為小鼠檢測到的發作變少,便繼續推進某種化合物。相反地,他們可以詢問,接受治療的小鼠 EEG 是否朝向與目標患者群體相關的人類健康模式移動。

在癲癇診所,例行 EEG 最終或許能將患者定位在某種特定神經狀態附近。這可以幫助研究人員根據一個人所具有的腦迴路問題設計試驗,而不只是依據「癲癇」這個廣泛標籤。這也可以幫助他們選擇最符合該患者群體的小鼠模型。

這種未來目前尚未確立。藥理學結果是回溯性的,只涵蓋十組組合,而且比較了不同癲癇症候群和臨床終點。作者都是 Exin Therapeutics 的員工;其中兩人持有公司股權,而公司已提交涵蓋這項方法的臨時專利申請。下一項測試,是在得知臨床結果前作出預測,並使用確實涵蓋目標疾病狀態的人類和動物資料。

來源

arXiv,「跨物種表徵學習對齊小鼠與人類的神經動態,並追蹤臨床藥物療效」