Effect of pregabalin on sleep structure of rats with temporal lobe epilepsy / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the effect of pregabalin on sleep structure in rats with temporal lobe epilepsy induced by pilocarpine.Methods:Twelve adult SD rats (half male and half female) were injected intraperitoneally with pilocarpine to establish a chronic temporal lobe epilepsy model.According to the principle of gender matching, they were divided into model group and pregabalin group, with 6 rats in each group(half male and half female). Another 6 SD rats (half male and half female) were taken as the control group.The skull electrodes were placed in the brain areas of rats to monitor the cerebral electrical activity, then recorded the data after resting for 1 week.Rats in pregabalin group were intraperitoneally injected with 50 mg/kg pregabalin while the rats in model group and control group were intraperitoneally injected with equal volume of normal saline.Fifteen minutes later, video electroencephalogram(EEG) and electromyogram(EMG) of rats in each group were recorded.The recording time was from 10∶00 to 17∶00 for 2 consecutive days.The seizure frequency, EEG and EMG were obtained.SPSS 25.0 was used for data analysis, one-way ANOVA was used for multi group comparison, and Tukey test and Games-Howell test were used for further pairwise comparison.Results:(1)The frequency of seizures in the pregabalin group (0.0(0.0, 1.0)times) were significantly lower than that in the model group(2.5(1.0, 4.8)times)( Z=-3.0, P<0.05). (2)During the 7 h recording period, the analyzed data showed that there were significant differences in the sleep-wake transition frequency, slow-wave sleep(SWS) phase duration, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep phase duration, total SWS time, total REM time and total sleep time among the three groups( F=10.5, 4.1, 13.0, 7.8, 4.4, 9.3, all P<0.05). The frequency of sleep-wake transitions in the pregabalin group ((66.3±18.0) times) and the control group ((87.8±14.1) times) were less than that in the model group ((106.7±20.8) times) (both P<0.05). The duration of SWS phase ((11.2±4.0) min) in pregabalin group was significantly longer than that in model group ((5.9±1.8) min) ( P<0.05), while that in model group was shorter than that in control group ((7.7±1.2) min) ( P<0.05). The duration of REM phase in the model group ((1.9±0.4) min) was shorter than that in the control group ((2.5±0.4) min) ( P<0.05). There was no significant difference in the duration of REM phase between the pregabalin group and the model group ( P>0.05). Within 7 h of observation, the total SWS time ((296.5±37.1) min) and total sleep time ((338.4±33.3) min) in pregabalin group were longer than those in model group ((258.1±38.4) min, (288.9±41.0) min) (both P<0.05). The total REM time ((30.4±11.1) min) and total sleep time ((288.9±41.0) min) in the model group were significantly shorter than those in the control group ((50.2±8.5) min, (339.0±19.6) min) (both P<0.05). Conclusion:Pregabalin alone can reduce seizures and change the sleep structure disorder caused by epilepsy, which is mainly manifested in reducing the number of sleep-wake transitions, prolonging the duration of SWS, increasing sleep duration, increasing SWS and total sleep time and improving sleep quality.