Anticonvulsant effect of polyunsaturated fatty acids in rats, using the cortical stimulation model

Recent studies have shown that long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids can prevent cardiac arrhythmias, attributed to the reduction in excitability of cardiomyocytes, owing mainly to a shift in hyperpolarizing direction of the inactivation curves of both Na + and Ca 2+ currents and to a slowed recove...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of pharmacology 1998-01, Vol.341 (2), p.145-152
Main Authors: Voskuyl, Robert A, Vreugdenhil, Martin, Kang, Jing X, Leaf, Alexander
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Anticonvulsant
Anticonvulsants. Antiepileptics. Antiparkinson agents
Biological and medical sciences
Cortical stimulation model
Disease Models, Animal
Docosahexaenoic Acids - therapeutic use
Electric Stimulation
Fatty Acids, Unsaturated - therapeutic use
Linoleic Acid - therapeutic use
Male
Medical sciences
Neuropharmacology
Oleic Acid - therapeutic use
Outcome Assessment (Health Care)
Pharmacology. Drug treatments
Polyunsaturated fatty acid
Rats
Rats, Wistar
Seizures - drug therapy
Valproic Acid - therapeutic use
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent studies have shown that long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids can prevent cardiac arrhythmias, attributed to the reduction in excitability of cardiomyocytes, owing mainly to a shift in hyperpolarizing direction of the inactivation curves of both Na + and Ca 2+ currents and to a slowed recovery from inactivation. Qualitatively similar effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids on inactivation parameters have been observed in freshly isolated hippocampal neurons. Since the same effects are presumed to underlie the action of some established anticonvulsant drugs, polyunsaturated fatty acids might have an anticonvulsant action as well. We have investigated this for eicosapentaenoic acid, docosahexaenoic acid, linoleic acid and oleic acid, employing cortical stimulation in rats, a seizure model allowing the determination of the full anticonvulsant effect-time profile in freely moving, individual animals. I.v. infusion of 40 μmol of eicosapentaenoic acid or docosahexaenoic acid over a period of 30 min, modestly increased the threshold for localized seizure activity after 6 h by 73±13 μA (mean±S.E.M.; n=7) and 77±17 μA ( n=7), respectively, and the threshold for generalized seizure activity by 125±20 and 130±19 μA, respectively ( P
ISSN:0014-2999
1879-0712
DOI:10.1016/S0014-2999(97)01467-2