Lack of cell loss following recurrent neonatal seizures.

In the neonatal rat recurrent seizures have been associated with long-term changes in cerebral excitability and cognition. Whether recurrent seizures in the neonatal rat lead to cell loss in the cerebral cortex is not known. We counted cells in the parietal cortex, piriform cortex, and CA3 and CA1 hippocampal subfields in young adult rats that had undergone a series of 55 seizures during the first 12 days of life. There were no differences in cell counts between the controls and rats subjected to neonatal seizures. Like the hippocampus, the neonatal pririform and parietal cortex is resistant to seizure-induced cell loss.