2021 Volume 61 Issue 1 Pages 3-11
The common degu (Octodon degus), originally native to South America, is now widely used as an experimental animal owing to several unique characteristics: common degus are highly social and use vocal sounds as communication tools. Importantly, their brain function is more complex than other laboratory rodents, making them a good model in the field of neuroscience. We established a colony of laboratory common degus and observed epilepsy-like seizures. We subsequently analyzed the process, strength, and duration of seizures by video recording. We examined 35 video images from 16 individuals (7 females and 9 males). The seizures began as abnormalities in the body parts (step 1), and then systemic tonic-clonic seizure (step 2) was observed. Following step 2, a short period of stillness (step 3) usually occurred, and then systemic tonic seizure occurred again (step 4). Ultimately, stillness (step 5) continued until recovery. We found sex-based differences in the strength and duration of seizures and observed large individual differences as well. Our results suggest that common degus have the potential to be used as a disease model for epilepsy.
