Epilepsy & behavior : E&B
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Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · Apr 2013
Inter-rater agreement for diagnoses of epilepsy in pregnant women.
We report on inter-rater agreement in assessing the types of seizures exhibited by one hundred mothers ascertained in a study of the teratogenicity of maternal epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs. A summary of each woman's medical record and a one-page report of her responses to questions about her epilepsy were reviewed independently by six neurologists, three in pediatric neurology and three in adult neurology. ⋯ The adult neurologists agreed with each other 59% of the time, with the agreement higher when all three used information from the patients' records, such as an EEG, rather than when depending on the patients' responses to questions about their epilepsy. The pediatric neurologists agreed with each other 44% of the time and tended to rely more heavily on information in the patients' records, such as an EEG or a prior diagnosis, compared with the adult neurologists.
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Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · Apr 2013
Neonatal immune challenge exacerbates seizure-induced hippocampus-dependent memory impairment in adult rats.
Our aim was to examine whether neonatal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure is associated with changes in microglia and whether these alternations could influence later seizure-induced neurobehavioral outcomes. Male pups were first injected intraperitoneally with either LPS or saline on postnatal day 3 (P3) and postnatal day 5 (P5). Immunohistochemical analysis showed that LPS-treated animals exhibited increased microglia activation that persisted into adolescence. ⋯ Rats treated with LPS neonatally showed significantly greater proinflammatory responses and performed significantly worse in the Y-maze, Morris water maze, and inhibitory avoidance tasks after KA insult. Treatment with minocycline at the time of neonatal LPS exposure to block LPS-induced microglia alternation attenuated the exaggerated neuroinflammatory responses and alleviated memory impairment associated with the KA insult. Our findings suggest that neonatal immune activation can predispose the brain to exacerbated behavioral deficits following seizures in adulthood, possibly by priming microglia.