Nucleus Accumbens Shell Lesions Alleviate Symptoms In Kainic Acid-induced Epileptic Rats

Background:Epilepsy is one of the most common serious brain conditions,affecting over 70 million people worldwide.Epilepsy is characterized by neuronal hyperexcitability and synchronized electrical discharges that lead to occurrence of seizure attacks,Temporal lobe epilepsy(TLE)is the most common type of the epilepsy.The treatment methods for epilepsy include drug treatment,surgical intervention.Surgical intervention methods include surgical resection,DBS,VNS.Although there are many treatment methods,there are still some seizures that cannot be completely controlled.Most of them lie in the control of nuclear groups,NAC is an important component of the ventral striatum,involving motivational and emotional processes,limbic-motor interfaces and often used to treat drug addiction,that divide into two distinct regions:the core and the shell(NACc and NACsh,respectively).In our previous study,it was found that high-frequency electrical stimulation of the nucleus accumbens has the effect of reducing epileptic seizures in some patients with drug addiction and epilepsy.The acute-phase seizures of the patients have inhibitory effects,but the mechanism of electrical damage of the nucleus accumbens putamen for the treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy has not been studied.Methods:Spontaneous seizures were observed 2 weeks after the induction of an intra-hippocampal Kainate model of epilepsy in male Sprague-Dawley rats(weight,240-260 g).100 rats were randomly divided into 20 control groups and 80 epilepsy groups.We performed histological evaluations,monitoring of behavior,Timm staining for mossy fiber sprouting,and recording of electroencephalography,and learning and memory were evaluated using the Morris water maze test..Results:The number of neurons in the hippocampus was higher in the lesion group than in the epilepsy group(P<0.05).Moreover,in the lesion group,microglial activation and astrogliosis were alleviated(P<0.05),hippocampal injury and mossy fiber sprouting was less pronounced(P<0.05),and seizure activity was suppressed.There was no significant difference in cognitive and memory impairment in epileptic rats(P>0.05),and there was no significant difference in body weight change in rats(P>0.05).Conclusions:In this study,we revealed that nucleus accumbens shell lesions could significantly inhibit Kainate-induced seizures by blocking discharge propagation and generation through alleviating hippocampal damage.These results provide futher evidence for the clinical use of deep brain stimulation in the nucleus accumbens shell.