Anxiety-like behavior in chemical window kindling-elicited seizures in male Wistar rats

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by a predisposition to recurrent and spontaneous or facilitated seizures; it affects a significant proportion of the worldwide population, with an estimated prevalence of 5-9 per 1000 inhabitants. Research on the neurobiological basis of the relationship between epilepsy and anxiety has revealed that both conditions show common neural substrates, also suggesting shared pathophysiological mechanisms. Several variations of pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) kindling have been used to study epilepsy and mood disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate anxiety-like behavior in the recently developed window-PTZ kindling model. Male Wistar rats were divided into two groups: control and induced seizures using the window-PTZ kindling method (35 mg/kg). After seizure induction, the second group was split into rats that achieved focal seizures (FS) and those that had generalized seizures (GS) through the Racine scale. All rats underwent an assessment of anxious-like behavior using both the elevated plus maze and the defensive burying test. The results showed that both seizure groups developed higher anxiety-like behavior than the control group. The present findings suggest that the chemical window-PTZ kindling model is suitable to study psychiatric comorbidities potentially linked to seizure severity.