Improved Stage Categorization of PTZ-Induced Kindling and Late Enhanced Neurogenesis in PTZ Kindled Mice

There is no universally accepted behavioral scoring to define the early development of pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) kindling. Therefore, studies investigating alterations of neurogenesis in the PTZ model were mainly focused on full kindled animals rather than early stages of kindling. This study aimed to determine an appropriate behavioral index for categorizing stages of PTZ kindling progress and to evaluate neurogenesis during PTZ kindling.

Twenty-four mice were intraperitoneally injected with a sub-convulsive dose of PTZ (40mg/kg) every other day until they became full kindled. The first occurrence of different seizure behaviors and their durations were recorded during kindling development, and the different stages of kindling were categorized. Neurogenesis was evaluated in the lateral subventricular zone (SVZ) at each stage of kindling by immunofluorescence staining.

First occurrence of restlessness, motionless staring, hind limb tonic extension, Straub’s tail, myoclonic jerk, and tonic-clonic were sequentially observed in more than 80% of animals with increasing PTZ injections. The duration of the myoclonic jerk was significantly longer than the other seizure behaviors. The significantly higher percentage of BrdU-positive cells was found in SVZ of mice showing tonic-clonic in comparison to other seizure behaviors.

A hierarchy behavior was observed during the kindling process when considering the first occurrence of seizure behaviors. We defined the first occurrence of restlessness, motionless, hind limb tonic extension and Straub’s tail behaviors as an early phase, myoclonic jerk as a borderline phase and tonicclonic as a late phase of PTZ-induced kindling. Our results indicated an enhanced SVZ neurogenesis at the late phase of kindling.