The neuropeptide somatostatin has been suggested to play a role in seizure genesis, electrical kindling and the neurotoxic effects of alcohol. The purpose of the present experiment was to study somatostatin-immunoreactive (SS-IR) neurons in hippocampus during alcohol-withdrawal kindling. Alcohol-withdrawal kindling was performed by subjecting male Wistar rats to seven weekly episodes consisting...

Temporal lobe epileptics often experience profound interictal (i.e. between seizure) emotional disturbances, such as fear, anxiety, and depression. Although the presence of this interictal emotionality has been well documented, little progress has been made in identifying its precise nature and cause because it is not amenable to experimental analysis in clinical populations. Accordingly, there...

Chemical sensitivity in humans may be an acquired disorder in which individuals become increasingly sensitive to chemicals in the environment. It is hypothesized that in individuals with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), a sensitization process has occurred that is akin to behavioral sensitization and kindling observed in rodents. In the rodent sensitization model, repeated exposure to stres...

Cognitive impairment is frequently observed in epileptic patients. It has been seen that not only epilepsy but antiepileptic drugs also impair cognitive functions. The present study was undertaken to assess the effect of three anticonvulsants viz. lamotrigine (5mg/kg, p.o.), oxcarbazepine (15mg/kg, p.o.) and topiramate (10mg/kg, p.o.) on cognitive function and oxidative stress during pentylenet...

The objective of this study was to analyze the changes in expression and the possible functions of interleukin-6 (IL-6) in electrical kindling of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in epileptic rats. Bipolar electrodes were implanted into the BLA of Sprague-Dawley rats, and the rats were then subjected to chronic electrical stimulation through the electrodes to induce kindling. The seizure characte...

PURPOSE Neuronal migration disorders (NMD) are often found in patients with epilepsy. However, the mechanisms linking these two pathologies are not yet fully understood. In this study, we evaluated whether NMD increased kindling seizure susceptibility and seizure-induced acute neuronal damage in the immature brain. METHODS Experimental NMD were produced by exposing pregnant rats (gestation da...

Repeated activation of neural pathways by kindling induces brief seizures, permanent increases in seizure susceptibility, neuronal loss in the hippocampus, and mossy fiber sprouting in the dentate gyrus. Because kindling induces permanent cellular alterations in hippocampal pathways that have been implicated in memory, it was of interest to determine if kindling also induces long-lasting impair...

INTRODUCTION Although hippocampus is the most famous brain area involved in temporal lobe epilepsy, hippocampal kindling (HK) develops very slowly. Hence, rapid kindling is usually preferred to the traditional kindling and it is widely used. In this article we aimed at finding the optimal stimulus pattern, which yields the fastest HK rate. METHODS Stimulus patterns with different duration (2,...

Daily tetanic stimulation of the Schaffer collaterals generates an epileptogenic focus in area CA1 of the rat hippocampus, ultimately leading to generalized tonic-clonic convulsions (kindling). Potassium currents were measured under voltage-clamp conditions in pyramidal neurons, acutely dissociated from the focus of fully kindled rats, one day and six weeks after the last generalized seizure. T...

Kindling in vivo results in enhanced glutamatergic synaptic transmission and epileptiform bursting in vitro in neurons of the basolateral amygdala (BLA). We tested the hypothesis that reduction of intrinsic inhibitory mechanisms, such as the slow- and medium-afterhyperpolarizations (s-AHPs, m-AHPs), contributes to the enhanced neuronal excitability observed in kindling-induced epileptogenesis u...