J.Jpn. Surg. Soc.. 57(3): 330-340, 1956

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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE EPILEPTIFORM SEIZURE OF THE DOGS PRODUCED BY ALUMINA CREAM

1) The author succeeded to produced recurrent convulsive seizures in the dog by intrathecal injection of alumina cream (AC). The dog showed, 20 days after the injection on an average, tonic-clonic convulsion started in the face or foreleg, which may recure in a gradually increasing frequency. Two dogs manifested seizures which might be designated as a "psycbomoter" type.
2) In those dogs, it was noted that the temperature increased and the pulse rate decreased as seizures were approaching. Plethysmographic studies revealed that there was a peripheral vasoconstriction started about a week prior to and culminating just before the convulsive seizure. Directly after the seizure vasodilatation was noted. Through the whole period no vasoconstriction, but vasodilatation was seen in ''psychomotor" type dogs.
3) In the electroencephalogram there was a gradual increase of amplitude associated with spike or sharp waves for a week, on an average, prior to the onset of the convulsive seizures.
4) The hemoglobin concentration of the blood and the protein concentration of the plasma, as measured by the copper sulphate method, were found to increase gradually before the seizures in 8 of 11 dogs.
5) The balance of inorganic salts, such as Cl, Ca, Na and K and of CO₂ and O₂ was studied both in the arterial (taken from the femorala artery) blood and in the venous (taken from the vertebral vein) blood. There was no definite relationship between seizures and Cl, Ca, O₂ and CO₂ balance. The Na concentration in the venous blood decreased, though slightly, before seizure and did more so after the convulsion that the difference between the concentrations in the venous and in the arterial blood become greater after the seizure, since the Na concentration in the arterial blood remained essentially unchanged.
The K concentration in the venous blood become higher than that in the arterial blood before seizure. This negative balance of K gradually increased as seizure were approaching. These changes in the Na and K concentration in blood suggest the changes in the permeability of the membranes of the ganglion cells.
6) The histochemical examinations revealed the diffuse distribution of the aluminum ion in the cerebral cortex. No area showed any particular affinity to the ion
7) By histological examinations there was noted local ischemic atrophy of the cerebral ganglion cells, capillary constriction, homogenization and dropping out of the Purkinje cells, pericellular edema and ganglion cell shrinkage in the Ammon's horn. All these were suggestive of circuratory disturbances in the brain.
8) It must be stressed that seizures produced in the dog by intrathecal injection of AC are similar, to some extent, to those of the human epileptics.
(author's abstract)

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