Status epilepticus and brain maturation.

The development of a limbic and a generalized tonic-clonic form of epilepsy, induced by systemic injections of kainic acid and pentylenetetrazol respectively, has been studied in developing rats. The purpose of this research was to investigate the correlations between the maturational stages of the CNS and the electro-clinical manifestations of epilepsy and status epilepticus. In both models of epilepsy, the electro-clinical patterns of seizures typical of the adult animal were reached as early as the third week of life. During the first weeks, atypical behavioural and EEG epileptic manifestations were observed. An attempt has been made to compare the experimental results with the electro-clinical epileptic signs of the infant, in order to suggest some neurophysiological explanations of the peculiar aspects of infantile epilepsy.