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GABA and Glutamate in Different EEG Stages of the Penicillin Focus

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Abstract

THE penicillin focus has been widely used as an experimental model in the study of epilepsy on which most of our knowledge about the electrophysiological cellular mechanisms of this disease is based. According to current views epileptic phenomena are related to an impairment of excitation-inhibition relationships in the brain. Transition from the inter-ictal stage to seizures results from an abolishment or weakening of inhibitory effects1. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was strongly implied in cortical inhibitory mechanisms and is thought to act as an inhibitory neurotransmitter2,3; glutamate has excitatory properties and is a possible excitatory neurotransmitter2. Estimations of GABA and glutamate contents in the brain have been made in animals in which convulsions were induced by convulsive hydrazides, pentamethylenetetrazole, picrotoxin, methionine sulphoximine and high oxygen pressure4–10. Berl and Waelsch11 compared levels of GABA and glutamate in a cortical spiking focus, produced by freezing, with levels in the surrounding tissue. We demonstrate here levels of GABA and glutamate in penicillin produced cortical foci, in the inter-ictal and ictal stages respectively, as compared with levels in control animals.

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Author notes

  1. ZEEV ELAZAR

    Present address: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Tel-Aviv University Medical School, Beilinson Hospital, Petah Tikya

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Isotope Department, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot

    ZEHAVA GOTTESFELD & ZEEV ELAZAR

  2. Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Tel-Aviv University Medical School, Tel-Aviv

    ZEHAVA GOTTESFELD & ZEEV ELAZAR

Authors
  1. ZEHAVA GOTTESFELD
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  2. ZEEV ELAZAR
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GOTTESFELD, Z., ELAZAR, Z. GABA and Glutamate in Different EEG Stages of the Penicillin Focus. Nature 240, 478–479 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1038/240478a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/240478a0

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