title: Lamotrigine positively affects the development of psychiatric comorbidity in epileptic animals, while psychiatric comorbidity aggravates seizures.
abstract: Several clinical and preclinical studies have focused on the relationship between epilepsy and psychological disturbances. Although behavior in some experimental models of epilepsy has been studied, only few of them can be considered as models of epilepsy and mood disorder comorbidity. Since several models of epilepsy or psychiatric disorders are already available, we wondered whether a mixture of the two could experimentally represent a valid alternative to study such comorbidity. Here, we present a possible experimental protocol to study drug effects and physiopathogenesis of psychiatric comorbidity in epileptic animals. Pentylentetrazol-kindled animals were subjected to the chronic mild stress (CMS) procedure; furthermore, we tested the effects of chronic lamotrigine treatment on the development of comorbidity. We found that epileptic-depressed animals showed more pronounced behavioral alterations in comparison to other mice groups, indicating that kindled animals develop more pronounced CMS-induced behavioral alterations than nonepileptic mice; lamotrigine was able to prevent the development of comorbidities such as anxiety, depression-like behavior, and memory impairment.
authors.affiliation: Science of Health Department, School of Medicine, University of Catanzaro, Italy. erusso@unicz.it
authors.forename: Emilio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Russo
authors.forename: Serafina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chimirri
authors.forename: Rossana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aiello
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: De Fazio
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leo
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rispoli
authors.forename: Rosario
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marra
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Labate
authors.forename: Pasquale
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Fazio
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Citraro
authors.forename: Giovambattista
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Sarro
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015897:Comorbidity; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000187:drug effects; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000187:drug effects; D000077213:Lamotrigine; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010433:Pentylenetetrazole / Q000633:toxicity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013395:Sucrose / Q000008:administration & dosage; D013550:Swimming / Q000523:psychology; D013997:Time Factors; D014227:Triazines / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D000927:Anticonvulsants; D014227:Triazines; D013395:Sucrose; D000077213:Lamotrigine; D010433:Pentylenetetrazole