Abstract
Summary
In an attempt to locate the cause which brings on convulsive seizures, agents to prevent lethal seizures in the DBA mouse strain, such as glucose, epinephrine and several hormonal compounds, steroids, were used. The DBA inbred mouse strain is characterized by its extremely high incidence of “lethal-convulsive-seizures” during the adolescent period. Testing mice in this period with various compounds showed that the DBA mouse responds to injections of all of them in various degrees of protectiveness against, not only fatal seizures, but also on the total seizure incidence. The untreated related animals showed 96% seizure incidence, while the epinephrine-glucose treated showed 6% incidence. As to “lethal-seizures”, epinephrine with glucose reduced the fatality to 2%, while the untreated related controls had a 79% fatality. The hormonal compounds, especially testosterone, pregnenolone, and estradiol were effective in reducing the total seizure incidence from 96% to 15% and the fatal seizure incidence from 79% to 0-2%. The findings of our investigation support the conclusion that the supposedly genetic mechanism controlling the susceptibility to seizures, responds to treatments of glucose and various hormonal compounds. This experimental control of its expression suggests a mechanism which is sensitively responsive to endocrine secretions, and their interrelationships.
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