[The investigation of cataleptic muscle tonus changes in rats after audiogenic seizures]

The duration and severity of cataleptic freezing after audiogenic seizures were investigated in rats of several genotypes with different predisposition to audiogenic epilepsy. These genotypes were the Krushinsky-Molodkina strain (KM--the audiogenic seizure prone strain), the Wistar and two new substrains selected from hybrids KM x Wistar for high ("4") and low ("0") audiogenic seizure susceptibility. The drug injections, which modulated the audiogenic fit severity, induced the changes in catalepsy too. It was found, that in intact animals cataleptic freezing developed after audiogenic seizures only and was more intense after severe seizures, the correlation coefficient being statistically significant. Levetiracetam (anticonvulsant drug) injections resulted in significant decrease of audiogenic fit severity and cataleptic state in Wistar and KM rats. Caffeine injections resulted in audiogenic seizures accompanied by cataleptic freezing in rats of the substrain "0", selected for audiogenic non-pronness.