Endogenous opioids and post-ictal increase in seizure threshold in Mongolian gerbils.

In gerbils, the convulsive thresholds both for electroconvulsions and for pentetrazole-induced convulsions were increased when determined 15 min after a convulsion elicited by an air blast to the back of the animals. Contrary to a recently offered hypothesis, this sign of post-ictal depression could not be reversed by pretreatment with the morphine antagonists naloxone and naltrexone. This result speaks against a mediation of post-ictal depression by endogenous opioids.