Impaired and repaired inhibitory circuits in the epileptic human hippocampus

This review focuses on the epileptic human temporal lobe, primarily on recent findings related to changes in hippocampal GABAergic interneuron circuits that have a central role in epileptogenesis. Relying on correlations to animal studies, we provide a functional interpretation of the different changes in perisomatic inhibition (controlling output synchrony) and dendritic inhibition (controlling input plasticity), and the potential consequences of the loss of interneuron-selective interneurons. The highly heterogeneous, but specific, alterations of GABAergic interneuron circuits have important implications for the pharmacotherapy of epilepsy.