Effect of Basal Ganglia upon Epileptic Seizures in Animal Mode

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Inhibitory and excitatory effects of basal ganglia and subthalamic nuclei were studied using kainic acid -induced seizure model in rats. Cortical epileptogenic foci were induced by intracortical microinjections of kainic acid. In Experiment 1, rats with a cortical focus, induced seizures were well suppressed by high frequency electrical stimulation of bilateral subthalamic nuclei (STN). In experiment 2, muscimol was injected into bilateral STN in rats with cortical focus. After injection, seizures were suppressed. The result suggested inhibition of the bilateral STN resulted in in activation of substantia nigra pars reticulate and seizures reduced.In experiment 3, kainic acid microinjection was performed into unilateral medial globus pallidus (GP) in rats. Each injection resulted in partial epilepsy with secondarily generalized tonic-clonic convulsions. As GP receives fibers from cerebral cortex, its excessive excitation facilitated the epileptic seizure propagation. In experiment 4, kainic acid microinjection into unilateral center-median nucleus of the thalamus (CM) resulted in partial seizures in the center-lateral limbs with secondarily generalized seizures. The results indicated that both GP and CM facilitated the epileptic seizure, both structures will be a good target to put depth electrodes for deep brain stimulations (DBS) in order to perform seizure suppression. Since DBS is less invasive treatment for intractable epilepsy patients, next step of our research is the DBS of GP and CM in kainic acid induced seizures to open clinical application of the DBS.