Drinkenburg W H I M, Schuurmans M L E J, Coenen A M L, Vossen J M H, van Luijtelaar E L J M
Department of Biological Psychology, Nijmegen Institute of Cognition and Information, University of Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Behav Brain Res. 2003 Aug 14;143(2):141-6. doi: 10.1016/s0166-4328(03)00031-7.
In the present experiment it was investigated whether and to what extent auditory information processing is possible during the presence of spike-wave discharges in rats. To that end, WAG/Rij rats which are an animal model for absence epilepsy, were provided with cortical electrodes for the registration of the electroencephalogram (EEG). The animals were first trained in an appetitively motivated conditioning paradigm to learn to discriminate between two auditory stimuli with equal duration and frequency but with different intensities. Next, the stimuli were presented in the test phase in pseudorandom order during spike-wave discharges. The reactivity of the ongoing EEG was analysed. It was found that the presentation of the reinforced stimulus induced a larger number of aborted spike-wave discharges than the non-reinforced stimulus, regardless of the intensity of the stimuli. This implies that during generalised spike-wave discharges the brain is still capable of evaluating the meaning of an ictally presented stimulus. It also shows that sensory, attentional and mnemonic processes are at least partially intact during the occurrence of a spike-wave discharge. The results of the present study are largely in agreement with results on human spike-wave activity-related cognitive disturbances. Moreover, they may lead to a refinement of the concept of epileptic consciousness and may emphasise the heuristic value of rodent models for studying both ictal and interictal information processing.
在本实验中，研究了大鼠出现棘波放电时听觉信息处理是否可行以及可行的程度。为此，选用作为失神癫痫动物模型的WAG/Rij大鼠，为其植入皮质电极以记录脑电图（EEG）。首先，让动物在一个以食欲为动机的条件范式中接受训练，学习区分两个持续时间和频率相同但强度不同的听觉刺激。接下来，在测试阶段，在棘波放电期间以伪随机顺序呈现刺激。分析了正在进行的脑电图的反应性。结果发现，无论刺激强度如何，强化刺激的呈现比非强化刺激诱发了更多的中断棘波放电。这意味着在全身性棘波放电期间，大脑仍然能够评估发作期呈现的刺激的意义。这也表明在棘波放电发生期间，感觉、注意力和记忆过程至少部分是完整的。本研究结果与人类棘波活动相关认知障碍的结果基本一致。此外，它们可能会使癫痫意识的概念更加精确，并可能强调啮齿动物模型在研究发作期和发作间期信息处理方面的启发价值。
