201. Anticonvulsant effects of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in chemically induced seizures in mice.
- Author
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Kalueff AV, Minasyan A, and Tuohimaa P
- Subjects
- Animals, Brain drug effects, Brain physiopathology, Convulsants antagonists & inhibitors, Disease Models, Animal, Epilepsy chemically induced, Epilepsy drug therapy, Injections, Subcutaneous, Mice, Mortality, Pentylenetetrazole antagonists & inhibitors, Reaction Time drug effects, Reaction Time physiology, Time Factors, Anticonvulsants pharmacology, Brain metabolism, Calcitriol pharmacology, Epilepsy metabolism
- Abstract
Here, we study the role of a neurosteroid hormone Vitamin D in epilepsy. To examine this problem, we used 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, an active form of Vitamin D, injected subcutaneously to NMRI mice (33 microg/20 microl) 40 min prior to seizures induced by systemic injection of pentylenenetrazole (PTZ, 70 mg/kg). Overall, compared to the vehicle-treated control animals (n=11 in each group), the Vitamin D-treated mice demonstrated reduced severity of PTZ-induced seizures (longer latency, shorter duration and lower mortality). In a separate experiment, we assessed the time-course of antiepileptic effects of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. For this, we injected this compound (33 microg/20 microl) to NMRIx129S1 mice (n=11) 40 min, 3, 6, 12 and 24 h prior to seizures, showing that antiepileptic effects were short-term, almost disappearing 3h after administration. Our findings show that Vitamin D plays a direct anticonvulsant role in the brain and suggest that the Vitamin D endocrine system may represent a new target for the development of anticonvulsant drugs.
- Published
- 2005
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