Local cerebral blood flow during lithium-pilocarpine seizures in the developing and adult rat: role of coupling between blood flow and metabolism in the genesis of neuronal damage.

Coupling between local cerebral blood flow and local cerebral metabolic rate for glucose is involved in the pathogenesis of epilepsy-related neuronal damage in the adult brain; however, its role in the immature brain is unknown. Lithium-pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus is associated with extended damage in adult rats, mostly in the forebrain limbic areas and thalamus, whereas damage was moderate in 21-day-old rats (P21) or absent in P10 rats. The quantitative autoradiographic [14C]iodoantipyrine technique was applied to measure the consequences of lithium-pilocarpine status epilepticus on local cerebral blood flow. In adult and P21 rats, local cerebral blood flow rates increased by 50% to 400%; the highest increases were recorded in regions showing damage in adults. At P10, local cerebral blood flow rates decreased by 40% to 60% in most areas, except in some forebrain regions showing no change during status epilepticus. In areas injured when status epilepticus was induced in adults, a strong hypermetabolism (Fernandes et al., 1999) not matched by comparable local cerebral blood flow increases was present in rats of all ages, whereas in damage-resistant areas, local cerebral metabolic rate for glucose and local cerebral blood flow remained coupled in the three age groups. Thus, the level of coupling between blood flow supply and metabolism is not involved in seizure-related brain damage in the developing brain, which appears to be resistant to the consequences of such a mismatch.