Many patients with
epilepsy suffer from psychiatric comorbidities including depression, anxiety,
psychotic disorders, cognitive, and personality changes, but the mechanisms underlying the association between
epilepsy and psychopathology are only incompletely understood. Animal models of
epilepsy, such as the
pilocarpine model of acquired
temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), are useful to study the relationship between
epilepsy and behavioral dysfunctions. In the present study, we examined behavioral and cognitive alterations, spontaneous
seizures, and neuropathology developing after a
pilocarpine-induced
status epilepticus in the C57BL/6 (B6) inbred strain of mice, which is commonly used as background strain for genetically modified mice. For this study, we used the same
pilocarpine ramping-up dosing protocol and behavioral test battery than in a previous study in NMRI mice, thus allowing direct comparison between these two mouse strains. All B6 mice that survived SE developed
epilepsy with spontaneous recurrent
seizures. Epileptic B6 mice exhibited significant increases of anxiety-related behavior in the open field and light-dark box, increased locomotor activity in the open field, elevated plus maze, hole board, and novel object exploration tests, and decreased immobility in the forced swimming and tail suspension tests. Furthermore, spatial learning and memory were severely impaired in the Morris water maze, although hippocampal damage was much less severe than previously determined in NMRI mice. B6 mice in which
pilocarpine did not induce SE but only
single seizures did not exhibit any detectable neurodegeneration, but differed behaviorally from
sham controls in several tests of the test battery used. Our data indicate that the
pilocarpine model of TLE in B6 mice is ideally suited to study the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the association between
seizures, brain damage and psychopathology.