At 9–10 weeks of age, male Wistar rats received repeated low-dose Kainic Acid (5 mg/kg ip, followed by 2.5 mg/kg ip injections every 45 min) until SE (defined as being unresponsive to external stimuli, and experiencing convulsive seizures) was initiated28. Four hours after the initiation of SE animals were given an injection of diazepam (5 mg/kg ip) to cease the SE. Control animals received saline (0.9%, 2 ml/kg ip) coupled with diazepam. Animals were culled at 24 hours and 10 weeks after SE. At 8 weeks post-SE, all animals underwent 2 weeks of continuous video-EEG recording (Compumedics, VIC, Australia) to identify spontaneous seizures as previously described42. All SE rats had at least one seizure, verified by at least 2 reviewers. Primers and conditions for qRT-PCR are as described for the pilocarpine model (n ≥ 3; unpaired t-test). All procedures involving animals were approved by the University of Melbourne Animal Ethics Committee. Methods were carried out in accordance with the approved guidelines.
