Wet dog shakes in limbic versus generalized seizures.

Wet dog shake behavior was studied in different models of epilepsy in the rat. Numerous wet dog shakes were associated with limbic seizures in the course of focal epilepsy induced by kindling stimulations or local injections of kainic or quisqualic acid and progressively disappeared during generalization. On the contrary, they were never observed in models of generalized epilepsy. This study suggests that the number of wet dog shakes may be an index of the progression of limbic seizures toward generalization.