EFFECT OF EARLY CORTICAL LESION ON THE ACUTE MODEL OF EPILEPSY

The experiments were performed in order to investigate the sparing of function following early postnatal cortical lesion in the acute rat mo del of epilepsy. Sensorimotor cortex was unilaterally removed at 9 and 10 days of postnatal age in lesioned animals, while control animals w ere only sham operated (at the same early stage of life) or non-operat ed (before implantation of the electrodes). Seizure activity was recor ded by means of electroencephalograms at adult stage of life induced b y parenteral administration of penicillin (1000 000 I.U./kg, i.p.). Ou r results showed that when the cortical lesion was performed in infanc y (on the contrary to the lesion performed in adulthood) there was no prolongation of seizure activity in an acute model of epilepsy.