Posttraumatic early epilepsy and minor head injury.

Abstract

The mechanism of "early epilepsy" sometimes observed after trivial head injury is controversial. Also, the risk of developing late epilepsy after these convulsions, so far, have not been clear. In order to clarify the mechanism of this posttraumatic early epilepsy after trivial head injury, an attempt was made to observe the role of extracellular potassium ion concentration ([K+]o) in initiation of seizure discharges, in both adult cats and kittens, with K-sensitive microelectrodes. It was concluded that an increase of [K+]o was not a simple factor for epileptogenesis but minor head injury actually increased seizure susceptability of immature cat cortex.