Ocena ostrych zmian zachowania w neonatalnym modelu epilepsji płata skroniowego
<span data-teams="true">Acute Behavioral Assessment in Neonatal Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Model
W skrócie
[Preprint - wstępne wyniki] Badacze porównali, które testy mogą wykryć napady padaczki u noworodków poprzez obserwację ich zachowania. Okazało się, że test geotaksji negatywnej (obserwacja, czy szczenię potrafi się odwrócić w stronę główki) jest czuły na napady padaczki, podczas gdy tradycyjny odruch prostowania oraz ogólna aktywność ruchowa nie wykazały znaczących zmian. Wyniki sugerują, że geotaksja negatywna może być przydatnym narzędziem do badania epilepsji neonatalnej w modelach zwierzęcych.
Oryginalny abstract (angielski)
Neonatal epilepsy is a severe clinical condition, yet preclinical research on neonatal seizures is hampered by the difficulty of EEG confirmation and the ambiguity of behavioral seizure readouts in immature rodents, and whether widely used neonatal reflex tests can detect acute seizure-related impairment at this age has not been systematically evaluated. The aim of this study was to compare the sensitivity of two widely used neonatal reflexes negative geotaxis and the righting reflex and DeepLabCut-based locomotor tracking as behavioral readouts of acute pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus (SE) in P11 rat pups. SE was induced in P11 Wistar rat pups by 127 mg/kg lithium chloride followed 24 h later by three consecutive 20 mg/kg pilocarpine injections; control pups received saline. Seizure severity was scored behaviorally, and pups were tested in the negative geotaxis and righting reflex paradigms; locomotor activity was quantified from video recordings using DeepLabCut markerless pose tracking, including the total Euclidean distance and the total trajectory area calculated by Gauss's (shoelace) formula. Groups comprised 7 pups each. No mortality was observed after pilocarpine administration. Pups in the acute phase of SE failed to reorient upward in the negative geotaxis test compared with controls, whereas the righting reflex was unaffected in all pups, and locomotor activity did not differ significantly between groups, either by total Euclidean distance or by total trajectory area. Negative geotaxis thus represents a sensitive, non-invasive behavioral readout of acute seizure activity in P11 rat pups, whereas the more mature righting reflex and general locomotor activity appear less informative at this age; these findings may help standardize behavioral assessment in preclinical studies of neonatal epilepsy.