Urethane anesthesia blocks the development and expression of kindled seizures

Field potential recordings in dentate gyrus of anesthetized rats: Stability of baseline

“…Advantages of urethane for this purpose include the duration, depth, and relative stability of the degree of anesthesia achieved. In studies of hippocampal synaptic plasticity, urethane also dramatically reduces the incidence of seizure-related events that could otherwise confound interpretation of potentiation experiments (Cain et al, 1989;Engstrom et al, 1990, Gilbert and. However, in the course of our studies on the effects of developmental lead exposure on long-term potentiation (LTP) in the dentate gyrus (Gilbert et al, 1996(Gilbert et al, , 1999a, significant shifts in the amplitude of the population spike (PS) were observed over the course of the recording session.…”

Beneficial Outcome of Urethane Treatment Following Status Epilepticus in a Rat Organophosphorus Toxicity Model

“…The widely used veterinary anesthetic urethane (ethyl carbamate) can produce a subanesthetic state of drowsiness or a long-lasting deep level of anesthesia without affecting autonomic and cardiovascular systems ( Soma, 1983 ; Maggi and Meli, 1986 ). Urethane reduces epileptiform activity and blocks the development of amygdala kindled seizures in rodents ( Cain et al, 1989 , 1992 ) as well as spinal seizures evoked by sudden cooling in a toad isolated spinal cord preparation ( Piña-Crespo and Daló, 1992 ). The molecular mechanisms underpinning the anesthetic effects of urethane involve both inhibition of excitatory neurotransmitter receptors and potentiation of inhibitory transmitter receptors ( Hara and Harris, 2002 ).…”

The Insular Cortex and the Pathophysiology of Stroke-Induced Cardiac Changes

“…Similar cardiac changes were elictable in both ventilated and unventilated rats. These effects were unlikely to be due to seizure activity or kindling: no overt seizure activity was observed; urethane at the concentration used in this study protects against kindling and seizure generation; 34 no change in pulse rate or in blood pressure or respiration occurred at a time when there were profuse electrocardiographic effects. This latter would be difficult to explain on the basis of seizure activity alone.…”