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Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Analysis of Gene Expression Changes in the Rat Hippocampus After Deep Brain Stimulation of the Anterior Thalamic Nucleus
Published on: March 8, 2015
Bilateral anterior thalamic nucleus lesions are not protective against seizures in chronic pilocarpine epileptic rats
Clement Hamani1, Flavio I S Ewerton, Flávia Marcolin de Almeida
1Departamentode Fisiologia, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. chamani@uhnres.utoronto.ca
Aims:
To investigate whether anterior thalamic nucleus (AN) lesions are protective against spontaneous recurrent seizures in the chronic phase of the pilocarpine model of epilepsy.
Methods:
Two groups of rats were treated with bilateral AN radiofrequency thalamotomies or sham surgery 2 weeks after pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus. After the lesions, animals were videotaped from the 2nd to the 8th week after status epilepticus (total 180 h).
Results:
During the 6 weeks of observation, no differences in the frequency of spontaneous seizures were found between animals that had bilateral AN lesions (n = 26; 3.1 +/- 0.6 seizures per animal) and controls (n = 25; 3.0 +/- 0.6 seizures per animal; p = 0.8).
Conclusions:
We conclude that AN thalamotomies were not effective in reducing the frequency of seizures during the chronic phase of the pilocarpine model of epilepsy.
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