Mechanism of epileptogenesis of the Mongolian gerbil, a gnetical animal model of epilepsy.

蒙古沙鼠（Meriones unguiculatus）是一种癫痫遗传动物模型，在多种刺激下表现出癫痫运动表现。我们发现，体位改变后的耳廓节律性运动是癫痫发作的强烈诱因，是刺激诱发行为的第一个可检测的迹象，并将发展为成人型癫痫表现。电生理研究表明，当感觉运动皮层的一个区域受到电刺激时，耳廓的运动就会被诱导。该区域在空间上与前庭皮层重叠，由前庭器官的电刺激确定。神经追踪分析表明，丘脑区域投射到皮层区域的耳廓运动似乎与其他动物的前庭皮层的运动相对应。由于前庭刺激被认为是参与姿势改变的外在因素，这些结果以及其他电生理和形态学观察似乎支持我们的假设，即前庭刺激在皮层区域诱导逐渐增加的后放电数量，该区域负责从耳廓运动开始的癫痫表现的形成。在沙鼠的神经元中，存在一种类似P70的蛋白，一种被认为与钴处理大鼠的epilegenesis有关的70kda蛋白。这种蛋白质可能是一种基因决定的因素，可以降低这种动物神经元的阈值。

The Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), a genetical animal model of epilepsy, shows the epileptic motor manifestations elicited by several kinds of stimulation. We found that the rhythmical movement of the pinnae occurring after posture change, a strong inducer of the seizure, was the first detectable sign of the stimulus-induced behaviors which would develop into adult-type seizure manifestations. Electrophysiological study showed that the movement of the pinnae was induced when an area of the sensorimotor cortex was stimulated electrically. This area was overlapped spatially with the vestibular cortex determined by electrical stimulation of the vestibular organ. Neurotracing analysis showed that the thalamic area projecting to the cortical area for the movement of the pinnae seemed to correspond to that thought to project to the vestibular cortex in other animal species. Since vestibular stimulation is a presumptive extrinsic factor involved in the posture change, these results and other electrophysiological and morphological observations seem to support our hypothesis that the vestibular stimulation induces progressively increasing number of afterdischarge in a cortical area which is responsible to the formation of epileptic manifestations starting from the movement of the pinnae. In the neurons of the gerbil, there was a protein like P70, a70 kDa protein considered to be involved in the epiletogenesis of cobalt-treated rat. This protein may be a genetically determined factor to lower the threshold of the neurons of this animal species.