Secondarily generalized convulsive seizures induced by daily amygdaloid stimulation in rhesus monkeys

Amygdaloid kindling in rhesus monkeys resulted in development of secondarily generalized convulsive seizures in an average of 196 days. Prior pharmacologic (bemegride) kindling accelerated this seizure development in one animal. None of the animals reached the stage 5 primary generalized seizure of baboons (Papio papio), even after 400 daily amygdaloid stimulations. Seizure stage instability, with frequent regression to an earlier stage, and the difficulty of establishing a generalized seizure triggering threshold in most of the rhesus monkeys, contrasts with our experiences in Papio papio. Thus, differences in the speed of kindling and in the quality of kindled convulsion between rhesus monkeys and epileptic baboons probably reflect the presence or absence of an epileptogenic predisposition in these two species. The difficulty of developing convulsive seizure in rhesus monkeys suggests that this species is particularly suited for the study of partial complex seizure. These studies indicate that the abrupt onset of human epilepsy with a fully developed convulsive seizure must represent and overwhelming central pathophysiologic event resulting from an endogenous, exogenous or a combined insult interacting with a genetically predisposed seizure susceptibility.