The Inhibitive Effect of rTMS on Entropy Coding of Firing Neuron at Hippocampus for Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Rats

This study is to investigate the inhibitive effect on the characteristic coding pattern of firing neuron at hippocampus for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) rats via repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). 20 lithium-pilocarpine models of TLE rats were divided into two groups randomly, and a 0.5Hz rTMS was performed for rTMS group. The spike trains recorded at dentate gyrus in hippocampus for two groups respectively. Nonlinear Shannon entropy was applied to code the changes of characteristic pattern of neuron firing for the two groups´ spike trains. Entropy for TLE group (TLE rats without rTMS) is 6.36plusmn 0.16 bit, and 6.79plusmn 0.27 bit for rTMS group. The entropy code between two groups is significantly different (p<0.001). The entropy code for rTMS group is trending to the normal. The inhibition to hypersynchrony discharge for the TLE rats can be performed by using a low frequency rTMS and it was supported by entropy code.