Absence-like seizures in adult rats following pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus early in life

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Abstract

Administration of pilocarpine causes epilepsy in rats if status epilepticus (SE) is induced at an early age. To determine in detail the electrophysiological patterns of the epileptogenic activity in these animals, 46 Wistar rats, 7-17 days old, were subjected to SE induced by pilocarpine and electro-oscillograms from the cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus and hypothalamus, as well as head, rostrum and vibrissa, eye, ear and forelimb movements, were recorded 120 days later. Six control animals of the same age range did not show any signs of epilepsy. In all the rats subjected to SE, iterative spike-wave complexes (8.1 ± 0.5 Hz in frequency, 18.9 ± 9.1 s in duration) were recorded from the frontal cortex during absence fits. However, similar spike-wave discharges were always found also in the hippocampus and, less frequently, in the amygdala and in thalamic nuclei. Repetitive or single spikes were also detected in these same central structures. Clonic movements and single jerks were recorded from all the rats, either concomitantly with or independently of the spike-wave complexes and spikes. We conclude that rats made epileptic with pilocarpine develop absence seizures also occurring during paradoxical sleep, showing the characteristic spike-wave bursts in neocortical areas and also in the hippocampus. This is in contrast to the well-accepted statement that one of the main characteristics of absence-like fits in the rat is that spike-wave discharges are never recorded from the hippocampal fields.

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The prevalence and incidence of convulsive disorders in children.

Andreas W Hauser (1993)

Each year, about 150,000 children and adolescents in the United States will come to medical attention for evaluation of a newly occurring seizure disorder of some type. Between 2% and 4% of all children in Europe and the United States experience at least one convulsion associated with a febrile illness before the age of 5 years. The cumulative incidence of febrile convulsions among children ranges from about 1% in China to more than 8% in Japan and 14% in Guam. The peak incidence of a first febrile convulsion occurs in the second year of life. Between 0.5% and 1% of children and adolescents experience a seizure associated with other acute metabolic or neurologic insults; most of these occur in the neonatal period. The incidence of epilepsy (recurrent unprovoked seizures) in children and adolescents seems relatively consistent across all populations studied, ranging from 50 to 100/100,000. The highest incidence of epilepsy is in the first year of life. West syndrome accounts for about 2% of all childhood epilepsy. Lennox-Gastaut syndrome for 1-2%, childhood absence epilepsy (pyknolepsy) for 10-15%, juvenile myoclonic epilepsy for 5%, and idiopathic localization-related epilepsy for 10%. Between 0.5 and 1% of children experience a nonrecurrent, single, unprovoked convulsive episode. Following are the estimated numbers of children and adolescents with newly diagnosed convulsive disorders in the United States for the year 1990: febrile seizures, 100,000; neonatal seizures, 4,000; other provoked seizures, 6,000; single unprovoked seizures, 10,000; and epilepsy, 30,000.