Specific and nonspecific multiple unit activities during the onset of pentylenetetrazol seizures. II. Acute lesions interrupting nonspecific system connections.

Nonspecific cortical, thalamic, mesencephalic, and pontine multiple unit activities (MUA) and changes in EEG and MUS of the sciatic nerve after threshold pentylenetetrazol activation were studied in three groups of animals in which neuronal connections were interrupted at three different levels of the central nervous system: spinal, mesencephalic, and prethalamic. Maximal increments of nonspecific MUA and maximal increments and maximal decrements of sciatic MUA after pentylenetetrazol from each group of lesioned animals were statistically compared with tose observed in intact animals. 1. Pentylenetetrazol threshold for producing cortical tonic-clonic EEG discharges was increased in animals with nesencephaic and prethalamic lesions but was not modified in animals with spinal transection. 2. Cortical MUA maximal increment was significantly decreased in mesencephalic and prethalamic lesioned animals, whereas thalamic MUA maximal increment was significantly decreased in mesencephalic and significantly increased in prethalamic lesioned animals. Pontine MUA maximal increment was significantly increased in spinal, mesencephalic, and prethalamic lesioned animals, and mesencephalic M-A maximal increment was not significantly modified in either prethalamic lesioned or in spinal transected animals. 3. Sciatic MUA maximal increment and maximal decrement were significatly decreased in spinal transected animals, whereas only maximal increment was significantly decreased in mesencephalic and only maximal decrement was significantly decreased in prethalamic lesioned animals. These results based on lesion experiments permit us to infer than under normal cinditions the development of generalized seizures induced by threshold pentylenetetrazol injection is highly dependent upon the neuronal interactions between nonspecific structures at different levels of the central nervous system. The possible nature of these neuronal interactions in the intact animals is discussed.