Bilateral anterior thalamic nucleus lesions are not protective against seizures in chronic pilocarpine epileptic rats.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether anterior thalamic nucleus (AN) lesions are protective against spontaneous recurrent seizures in the chronic phase of the pilocarpine model of epilepsy.


METHODS
Two groups of rats were treated with bilateral AN radiofrequency thalamotomies or sham surgery 2 weeks after pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus. After the lesions, animals were videotaped from the 2nd to the 8th week after status epilepticus (total 180 h).


RESULTS
During the 6 weeks of observation, no differences in the frequency of spontaneous seizures were found between animals that had bilateral AN lesions (n = 26; 3.1 +/- 0.6 seizures per animal) and controls (n = 25; 3.0 +/- 0.6 seizures per animal; p = 0.8).


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that AN thalamotomies were not effective in reducing the frequency of seizures during the chronic phase of the pilocarpine model of epilepsy.
Hamani
Clement
C
Departamentode Fisiologia, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. chamani@uhnres.utoronto.ca
Ewerton
Flavio I S
FI
Marcolin de Almeida
Flávia
F
Bonilha
Saulo M
SM
Covolan
Luciene
L
Fantin Cavarsan
Clarissa
C
Ballester
Gerson
G
Mello
Luiz E
LE
Lozano
Andres M
AM