Abstract: (7502 Views)
Background and purpose: Kindling is an animal model of epilepsy induced by repeated
stimulation of the brain. The amygdala has been the focus of interest due to large part to its role in
epilepsy induction and in fear conditioning in both human and rats. The purpose of the present study was
to evaluate whether low electrical stimulation of foot pad of rats during fear can facilitate amygdala
electrical kindling susceptibility.
Material and methods: 32 Wistar male rats trained for the two way active avoidance learning
in the shuttle box on the basis of escape response were divided into fast and slow learning animals and
then each group was randomly assigned to two groups. Test groups (n= 10) received conditional and
unconditional stimulus and control groups (n= 8) received conditional stimulus for ten days. The rats
were kindled by electrical stimulation of basolateral amygdala and the seizure parameters were noted. The
data were analyzed using one way ANOVA and Tukey’s test.
Results: The results of the present study demonstrate that repeated electrical stimulation of slow
learning animals during fear condition facilitates kindling induction.
Conclusion: It seems that repeated electrical stimulation after fearing in rats that have
impairments in performance of shuttle box conditioning increase the susceptibility to electrical kindling.