We examined whether acupuncture can reduce both the incidence of seizures and hippocampal cell death using a mouse model of kainic acid (KA)-induced epilepsy. ICR mice were given acupuncture once a day at acupoint HT8 (sobu) bilaterally during 2 days before KA injection. After an intracerebroventricular injection of 0.1 microg of KA, acupuncture treatment was subsequently administered once more...

Excitotoxicity is considered to be an important mechanism involved in various neurodegenerative diseases in the central nervous system (CNS) such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the mechanism by which excitotoxicity is implicated in neurodegenerative disorders remains unclear. Kainic acid (KA) is an epileptogenic and neuroexcitotoxic agent by acting on specific kainate receptors (KARs) in...

Four sphingolipid activator proteins (i.e., saposins A-D) are synthesized from a single precursor protein, prosaposin (PS), which exerts exogenous neurotrophic effects in vivo and in vitro. Kainic acid (KA) injection in rodents is a good model in which to study neurotrophic factor elevation; PS and its mRNA are increased in neurons and the choroid plexus in this animal model. An 18-mer peptide ...

Because magnesium has antiseizure effects in some animal models of epilepsy, and possible neuroprotective effects in some models of neuronal injury, we aimed to investigate its effects in the kainic acid (KA) model of status epilepticus (SE) in prepubescent rats. This age was chosen because it is a common age for onset of epilepsy and of SE in humans. Three groups of P35 rats were studied: Grou...

Background The subiculum, the main output region of the hippocampus, remains largely preserved in human temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and therefore may be importantly involved in the generation of epileptic activity arising from the hippocampal region. Our goal was to characterize histopathological and neurochemical changes in the rat subiculum using the kainic acid (KA) model of TLE and to corr...

The rising demand for chiral raw materials, intermediates, and active ingredients in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, food additives, and fragrances provides the impetus for rapid developments in chiral technology.[1] It remains a huge challenge for organic chemists to develop highly enantioselective reactions for the preparation of enantiomerically pure compounds in a cost-effective manner. Lac...