Elevated end systolic function in a rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy

, , , , , ,
1 A.I.Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland
2 Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
3 Department of Mathematics, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, United States
4 Research Unit of Medical Imaging, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
5 Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
6 Department of Biological Sciences, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.26999v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Neuroscience, Anatomy and Physiology
Keywords
cMRI, cardiac, rodent, epilepsy
Copyright
© 2018 Pirttimäki et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Pirttimäki T, Laakso H, Sierra A, Cunningham C, Liimatainen T, Gröhn O, DeRuisseau L. 2018. Elevated end systolic function in a rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26999v1

Abstract

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a common cause of premature death amongst epilepsy patients. It is hypothesized to result from cardiorespiratory dysfunction, but the exact aetiology is unknown. The aim of this study was to determine if functional cardiovascular alterations were present in rats with chronic epileptic behaviour. Naive control rats were compared to a rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy that was induced using a repeated low-dose kainic acid (KA) protocol. The results indicate that end-systolic volume was significantly (p=0.01) higher in the epileptic group whilst end-diastolic volume did not reach significance (p=0.08). Ejection fraction, stroke volume, cardiac output, heart rate, body weight and heart size were also measured and appeared similar between groups. These initial data support the use cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) to investigate cardiovascular changes across disease development of epilepsy-like behaviour, which may offer insight into understanding SUDEP.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.