Developmental effects of seizures: role of malnutrition.

Eighty-eight rats were paired at birth according to sex and weight. One member of each pair received two electroconvulsive seizures a day during the neonatal period (days 2 to 11). Access of its control littermate to the mother was restricted so that the body weights of any two paired rats never diverged by more than 2 gm on any day of life, and were usually within one half gram of each other. This guaranteed that the nutritional status of seizure-treated and control animals was similar throughout development. On day 30 of life, seizure-treated rats had smaller brains (-56 mg, P less than .05) and reduced numbers of brain cells (-13.10(6), P less than .05) compared to their control littermates. It was concluded that the reduction of brain DNA brought about by neonatal seizures was not simply caused by malnutrition of seizure-treated animals.