Proliferation Changes in Dentate Gyrus of Hippocampus during the First Week following Kainic Acid-induced Seizures

Long-term neuroplastic changes in dentate gyrus (DG) have been reported after seizure induction and were shown to contribute to epitogenesis of epilepsy. These changes include increased number of newborn granule cells, sprouted mossy fibers, granule cell layer dispersion, etc. The aim of current study is to determine the acute progression of neuroplastic changes involved newly generated granule cells after kainic acid (KA)-induced seizures. Doublecortion (DCX) analysis was used to examine the newly generated granule cells morphology 1-7 days after seizure induction. Quantitative analysis of DCX-labeled cells at different times shows that there are some rapid changes in the dentate gyrus. At day 7 epileptical mice induced an increase of the number of DCX-labeled cells in DG. At days 3 and 7 after epilepsy induction, the percentage of DCX-labeled cells per DG were significantly increased. These results show that seizures are capable to increase the number of new granule cell within a short time for function activation in post-seizure period. Therefore, the rapid changes in the DG might be having a potential for hippocampus neuroplastic function.