A novel approach to the study of hypoxia-ischemia-induced clinical and subclinical seizures in the neonatal rat

M. Cuaycong, M. Engel, S. L. Weinstein, E. Salmon, J. M. Perlman, S. Sunderam, S. J. Vannucci

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Scopus citations

Abstract

Perinatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a major cause of acute mortality and chronic neurologic morbidity in infants and children. HIE is the most common cause of neonatal seizures, and seizure activity in neonates can be clinical, with both EEG and behavioral symptoms, subclinical with only EEG activity, or just behavioral. The accurate detection of these different seizure manifestations and the extent to which they differ in their effects on the neonatal brain continues to be a concern in neonatal medicine. Most experimental studies of the interaction between hypoxia-ischemia (HI) and seizures have utilized a chemical induction of seizures, which may be less clinically relevant. Here, we expanded our model of unilateral cerebral HI in the immature rat to include video EEG and electromyographic recording before, during and after HI in term-equivalent postnatal-day-12 rats. We observed that immature rats display both clinical and subclinical seizures during the period of HI, and that the total number of seizures and time to first seizure correlate with the extent of tissue damage. We also tested the feasibility of developing an automated seizure detection algorithm for the unbiased detection and characterization of the different types of seizure activity observed in this model.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)241-250
Number of pages10
JournalDevelopmental Neuroscience
Volume33
Issue number3-4
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2011

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and StrokeR03NS071296

    Keywords

    • Hypoxic-ischemic brain damage
    • Seizure detection algorithm
    • Video electroencephalography

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Neurology
    • Developmental Neuroscience

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