Dissociation between behavioral and electrocortical manifestations of electroshock convulsions during the action of an anticonvulsive drug.
It was shown that 5-OH-5-ethyl-5-phenyl-butyramide (formerly called 5-ethyl-5-phenyl-2-pyrrolidinone) significantly reduces convulsions induced by electroshock in rats, and by drugs in mice. We are reporting a dissociation between the effects of this drug on the behavioral manifestations of electroshock and on the electrocortical afterdischarges. At 50 mg/kg, the drug reduced greatly the duration of the tonic phase of muscular convulsions, but had little or no effect on their total duration or on the electrocortical afterdischarges. At 100-150 mg/kg, the effect on the tonic phase was only slightly larger, but the total duration of behavioral convulsions and the intensity of electrocortical afterdischarges were substantially reduced, while the duration of the latter was either slightly reduce or increased. Only 200 mg/kg, which had clear depressant effects, produced a complete disappearance of all manifestations of electroshock convulsions. It can be concluded that this drug acts more strongly on subcortical structures that transmit cortical convulsions to the muscles, than on the cortical mechanisms that generate electrocortical afterdischarges.
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004597:Electroshock; D008297:Male; D011760:Pyrrolidinones / Q000494:pharmacology*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012640:Seizures / Q000503:physiopathology*
D011760:Pyrrolidinones; C015203:5-ethyl-5-phenylpyrrolidinone