Implantable micro-magnetic stimulation targeting the fasciola cinereum alleviates cognitive deficits in temporal lobe epilepsy male rats.

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is a pharmacoresistant neurological disorder frequently accompanied by cognitive deficits, yet effective non-pharmacological interventions for these impairments remain limited. In this study, we investigated whether implantable micro-magnetic stimulation (μMS) targeting the fasciola cinereum (FC) could alleviate cognitive deficits associated with TLE. In a pilocarpine-induced TLE rat model, low-frequency (1 Hz) μMS targeting the FC effectively suppresses high-amplitude calcium oscillation events in dorsal hippocampal CA1 glutamatergic neurons (CA1glu) and alleviates TLE. We further applied optogenetic manipulation and confirmed that FC neurons may be involved in mediating the TLE-alleviating effects of µMS. Further, μMS alleviates cognitive deficits in TLE. Specifically, μMS enhances CA1glu activation during object location memory (OLM) and novel object recognition (NOR) tasks and alleviates impairments in CA1 bidirectional synaptic plasticity. These results suggest that low-frequency implantable μMS targeting the FC alleviates cognitive deficits in TLE rats. This finding presents a promising non-pharmacological strategy for deep brain-targeted neuromodulation.