Jh. Zhong et al., BARBITURATE-REVERSIBLE REDUCTION OF WATER DIFFUSION-COEFFICIENT IN FLUROTHYL-INDUCED STATUS EPILEPTICUS IN RATS, Magnetic resonance in medicine, 33(2), 1995, pp. 253-256
Rat brains (n = 17) with flurothyl-induced status epilepticus (SE) hav
e been imaged with a gradient-echo diffusion-weighted imaging sequence
at 2.0 T. The apparent water diffusion coefficient (ADC) decreased du
ring seizure discharges. The magnitude of the ADC reduction correlated
well with the duration of flurothyl exposure. A 17% reduction in the
water ADC compared with preseizure condition was observed in rats with
the longest flurothyl exposure time. In 13 rats, pentobarbital was us
ed to arrest the electrographic seizure activity. ADC values began to
return to normal a few minutes after the injection. In four rats with
no pentobarbital administration, ADC values remained depressed up to 1
h after seizure onset. The results suggest that diffusion-weighted MR
imaging may be useful for mapping recent intense seizure activity in
human patients with medically intractable epilepsy.