Cardiac dysfunction in rats prone to audiogenic epileptic seizures

Abstract

We present evidence that chronic disturbances in sympathetic tone in WAR cause increases the risk to life-threatening arrhythmias. Our results support a relationship between seizures, cardiac dysfunction and cardiac arrhythmias, which may contribute to the occurrence of SUDEP.

Progressive development of cardiomyopathy following altered autonomic activity in status epilepticus

“…iHR is defined as HR in the absence of neural influences and represents the basal activity of the cardiac pacemaker (40). iHR was determined in the presence of the ␤-blocker atenolol (5 mg/kg sc) and the muscarinic receptor antagonist ipratropium (5 mg/kg sc) (9). Preseizure measurements were performed 2-3 days prior to seizure induction.…”

Autonomic function in reflex and non-reflex epilepsy - an exploratory study

“…The phenomenon of autonomic dysfunction has been reported albeit preliminarily in some reflex epilepsies, like audiogenic epilepsy (11) and hot water epilepsy (HWE) (12). In case of HWE, the authors proposed that a kindling phenomenon may be responsible for the seizures and demonstrated reduced vagal tone and increased sympathetic tone in these patients (12).…”

Premature ventricular complexes: How benign are they in epilepsy?

“…In fact, PVCs often precede fatal arrhythmias, such as ventricular fibrillation [16]. Therefore, until now, the literature suggests that epilepsy may directly influence the cardiovascular system, triggering both structural and functional heart changes in patients with epilepsy [1,3,6,7,17,18], In light of the foregoing, we hypothesize that in these subjects, even occasional PVCs could predispose to serious arrhythmias. Thus, we highlight that PVCs are an important phenomenon that should be considered in the clinical evaluation of these patients.…”

“…Likewise, Damasceno and colleagues [6] showed that Wistar Audiogenic Rats (WAR) also exhibited high resting heart rate and QT c prolongation compared to animals without audiogenic seizures. Additionally, they also demonstrated that the isolated heart of WAR is more susceptible to arrhythmias induced by ischemia/reperfusion [6].…”

“…Likewise, Damasceno and colleagues [6] showed that Wistar Audiogenic Rats (WAR) also exhibited high resting heart rate and QT c prolongation compared to animals without audiogenic seizures. Additionally, they also demonstrated that the isolated heart of WAR is more susceptible to arrhythmias induced by ischemia/reperfusion [6]. Moreover, Naggar and colleagues [7] reported cardiac hypertrophy in rats submitted to a kainic acid model of epilepsy; however, they verified decreased ventricular fibrillation susceptibility despite a higher QT c dispersion [7].…”