Spontaneously recurrent seizures after intracerebral injections of kainic acid in rat: a possible model of human temporal lobe epilepsy.

Intrastriatal injection of kainic acid in rats acutely induced repeated episodes of clonic convulsions. Spontaneously recurrent generalized seizures and a potentiation of the convulsant effects of phentylenetetrazol were then observed in most of the injected rats several weeks after surgery. In addition to marked loss of striatial neurons, limbic pathological alterations similar to those found in human temporal lobe epilepsy were observed in the brains of the kainic-acid treated rats. It is proposed that this preparation might serve as an animal model of human temporal lobe epilepsy.