PRENATAL ETHANOL EXPOSURE - SUSCEPTIBILITY TO CONVULSIONS AND ETHANOLS ANTICONVULSANT EFFECT IN AMYGDALA-KINDLED RATS

The present experiments assessed the effects of prenatal ethanol expos ure on the susceptibility to convulsions and on the anticonvulsant eff ect of ethanol using the electrical kindling model of epilepsy in rats . Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats from prenatal ethanol (E), pair fed ( PF), and ad libitum-fed control (C) treatment groups were tested follo wing the implantation of a stimulation electrode in the left amygdala complex. The same rats were tested in four consecutive experiments. Bo th E and PF rats showed a slightly slower rate of kindling than C rats , as measured by convulsion class but not as measured by forelimb clon us duration (experiment 1). However, the groups did not differ signifi cantly in the electrical stimulation threshold for kindled convulsions (experiment 2). Furthermore, prenatal ethanol exposure had no signifi cant effect on the dose-response curve for ethanol's (0, 0.9, 1.1, 1.3 , and 1.5 g/kg, ip) anticonvulsant effect (experiment 3), or on the ra te of tolerance development to ethanol's (1.5 g/kg, ip) anticonvulsant effect (experiment 4) on kindled convulsions. Thus, prenatal exposure to ethanol does not appear to have long-term effects on the susceptib ility to convulsions or on the anticonvulsant effect of ethanol in adu lt mate rats in the kindling model as used in the present experiments.