Safety of the Transcranial Focal Electrical Stimulation via Tripolar Concentric Ring Electrodes for Hippocampal CA3 Subregion Neurons in Rats

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that affects approximately one percent of the world population. Noninvasive electrical brain stimulation via tripolar concentric ring electrodes has been proposed as an alternative/complementary therapy for seizure control. Previous results suggest its efficacy attenuating acute seizures in penicillin, pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus, and pentylenetetrazole-induced rat seizure models and its safety for the rat scalp, cortical integrity, and memory formation. In this study, neuronal counting was used to assess possible tissue damage in rats (n = 36) due to the single dose or five doses (given every 24 hours) of stimulation on hippocampal CA3 subregion neurons 24 hours, one week, and one month after the last stimulation dose. Full factorial analysis of variance showed no statistically significant difference in the number of neurons between control and stimulation-treated animals (p = 0.71). Moreover, it showed no statistically significant differences due to the number of stimulation doses (p = 0.71) nor due to the delay after the last stimulation dose (p = 0.96). Obtained results suggest that stimulation at current parameters (50 mA, 200 mu s, 300 Hz, biphasic, charge-balanced pulses for 2 minutes) does not induce neuronal damage in the hippocampal CA3 subregion of the brain.