Genetic and Temporal Characteristics of Audiogenic Seizures in Mice

Abstract

Convulsive seizures induced by exposure to loud sounds have been described in rats, house mice, deermice and rabbits. Strain variation in susceptibility to audiogenic seizures has been described in all these species. The literature is particularly abundant for house mice which are excellent subjects for investigations in mammalian genetics (1,3,4,9,12,13,15). Among these reports one can find data used to support single factor, two factor, and multiple factor hypotheses for genetic determination of susceptibility. The multiple factor hypothesis is usually combined with a threshold concept. Genes are considered to affect some underlying physiological variable which is continuously, and perhaps normally, distributed. Above some threshold value for this variable, seizure risk is high; below the threshold, it is low. Actually the threshold is usually considered to be a range of values within which susceptibility fluctuates. At the extremes of the postulated continuous underlying variable, however, animals are clearly either susceptible or not susceptible.