[Bilateral generalized convulsion of split brain cats caused by the amygdaloid kindling]

Previous studies have shown that the corpus callosum is involved in the propagation of epileptic discharge between two hemispheric areas of the brain. It is generally admitted that integrity of the corpus callosum is necessary for the bilateral clinical seizure manifestation. After investigating the role of the forebrain commissures in the development of the kindled amygdaloid seizure in cats, some authors insist that following the bisection of the corpus callosum, ordinary bilateral amygdaloid kindling convulsion becomes into hemiconvulsion and its EEG becomes also unequal; the kindling side showed clear seizure pattern, the other side remained normal. In our former experiment, we intended to compare the half-brain loss hemispherectomized cats with the intact ones on the time latency for the completion of the amygdaloid kindling effect as well as on the developmental change of the clinical seizure manifestation. The time latency of the operated cats was significantly shorter than that observed in the control cats and all the examined cats always showed typically bilateral symmetrical convulsion from the first kindling. Our results are contradictory to those of the split brain experiments whose cat's brain is only locally bisected. We reviewed the related papers and knew that not a few authors omitted to mention the operation technique and did not give the histological evidence of cutting. So we tried to contrive the best split brain cutting after studying previous authors' operation techniques. Ten cats weighing from 2.7 to 3.3 kg aged above 12 months were used. Among them, 5 cats were for normal controls.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)