EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH ‐ON THE FUNCTION OF THE AMYGDALOID NUCLEI IN PSYCHOMOTOR EPILEPSY

Abstract

SummaryThe local strychninization of the amygdaloid nuclei of the cat brain caused appearance of the typical strychnine spikes from the anterior temporal portion and the antero‐lateral portion of lobus piriformis, the anterior part of hippocampus, the septal region, nucleus ventromedialis of hypothalamus, and nucleus dorsomedialis, et centnim medianum of thalamus. Therefore, it will follow that there exist the amygdalo‐temporal, the amygdalo‐hippocampal, the amygdalo‐septal, the amygdalo‐hypothalamic and the amygdalo‐thalamic projections.The strychninization of lobus temporalis also induced appearance of the strychnine spikes from hippocampus and amygdala and, also, from the ventromedial nucleus of hypothalams.These neuronal connections made it possible to explain the complex automatic, somatic, behavioral and electroencephalographic responses in psychomotor epilepsy, for which the rhinencephalon must necessarily be thought essentially responsible.Twelve adult dogs were injected with a small amount of the alumina cream into the left amygdala and seized with chronic epileptic automatism. From about five weeks after injection, they pad clinically into the complex autonomic, somatomotor and behavioral activities paroxysmally and developed the symptoms which might be included in the so‐called oral emotional behavior, while electroencephalographically they gave rise to the spikes or the sharp waves originating in the injected temporal portion, therzby, through an ictal period, proved appearance of the typical square‐topped waves or the spike and wave patterns.From the clinical and the EEG point of view, it can be said that those responses are much akin with the symptoms of psychomotor epilepsy in man.