Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0038220 (status epilepticus)
 7,272 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The high fat, low carbohydrate, low protein ketogenic diet (KD) has been used to control refractory epilepsy in children since 1920, although its mechanism of action is unknown. Previous animal studies have shown that the KD can increase acute seizure threshold, but the effect of the KD on the process of epileptogenesis has not been studied. We tested the effect of an experimental KD on epileptogenesis in adult rats using the kainic acid (KA) model. P54 rats underwent KA-induced status epilepticus, followed by assignment to a control diet or a KD consisting of (by weight), 14% protein, 70% fat and no carbohydrate. KD-fed animals tolerated the diet and maintained ketosis. KD-fed rats had significantly fewer and briefer spontaneous recurrent seizures and less supragranular mossy fiber sprouting, although the degree of hippocampal pyramidal cell damage was similar in both groups. These results provide the first evidence that the KD retards epileptogenesis in an experimental model.
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PMID:Ketogenic diet reduces spontaneous seizures and mossy fiber sprouting in the kainic acid model. 1038 Sep 73

The electrophysiological effects of the high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet (KD) were assessed in normal and epileptic [kainic-acid(KA)-treated] adult rats using hippocampal slices. In the first set of experiments, normal rats were fed the KD or a standard control diet for 6-8 weeks (beginning on postnatal day 56, P56), after which they were sacrificed for hippocampal slices. All rats on the KD became ketotic. The baseline effects of the KD were determined by comparing extracellular measures of synaptic transmission and responses to evoked stimulation, and hippocampal excitability was tested in Mg(2+)-free medium. There were no differences in EPSP slope, input/output relationship, responses to evoked stimulation or Mg(2+)-free burst frequency between slices from control and KD-fed rats. In another set of experiments, rats were made epileptic by intraperitoneal injection of kainic acid (KA) on P54, which caused status epilepticus followed by the development of spontaneous recurrent seizures (SRS) over the next few weeks. Two days after KA-induced status, rats were divided into a control-fed group and a KD-fed group. Animals on the KD had significantly fewer SRS over the ensuing 8 weeks. In hippocampal slices from KA-treated, KD-fed rats, there were fewer evoked CA1 population spikes than from slices of control-fed rats. These results suggest that the KD does not alter baseline electrophysiological parameters in normal rats. In rats made chronically epileptic by administration of KA, KD treatment was associated with fewer spontaneous seizures and reduced CA1 excitability in vitro. Therefore, at least part of the KD mechanism of action may involve long-term changes in network excitability.
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PMID:Electrophysiological observations in hippocampal slices from rats treated with the ketogenic diet. 1057 63