CHANGES IN EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR PRODUCED BY LONG-TERM AMYGDALA KINDLINGIN RATS

The effects of long-term amygdala kindling on emotional behavior were investigated. IN Experiment 1, rats received 99 basolateral amygdala, central amygdala, or sham stimulations. The rats in both kindled group s displayed more resistance to capture from an open field and more ope n-arm activity on an elevated plus maze than did the sham control rats . In Experiment 2, rats received either 20, 60, 100 amygdala stimulati ons or sham stimulations. Compared to the sham controls, the kindled r ats explored less during the first 30s in a novel open field, avoided the central area of the open field, resisted being captured from the o pen field, and engaged in more open-arm activity on the elevated plus maze. The magnitude of these effects was greatest in the 100-stim rats and least in the 20-stim rats. Together, these results suggest that l ong-term amygdala kindling in rats is a useful model for studying the emotionality associated with temporal lobe epilepsy. (C) 1997 Society of Biological Psychiatry.