Effect of systemic injections of kainate in Wistar and Sprague-Dawley rats.

<p>(A) Multiple doses of 5 mg/kg kainate were used to induce <i>status epilepticus</i> (SE) in adult male rats. The histograms show percentage of rats exhibiting SE in Wistar (n = 96) and Sprague-Dawley animals (n = 57). No differences were found between strains. (B) Progression to SE in Wistar and Sprague-Dawley rats as evaluated with the Racine scale. Data from for n = 10 rats entering SE with 2 and 3 doses in each strain. A group of rats were resistant to develop SE (n = 10 Wistar and n = 7 Sprague-Dawley). (C) Chronic electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings were obtained from the dorsal hippocampus in a group of animals. Representative examples of EEG recording during walking and awake immobility are shown for control, resistant and epileptic animals. (D,E) Epileptic rats also exhibited epileptiform events like interictal spikes (D) and spontaneous seizures (E). The discontinous line box group data obtained from the same epileptic rat.