ONE FIGURE
As early as 1924 Donaldson ('15) mentioned rats which showed an almost maniacal running and jumping-going on to exhaustion-when a bundle of keys is jingled before the cage". Recent workers who have described in detail the behavior in question are agreed that it is elicited most readily, if not exclusively, by auditory stimulation ( Auer and Smith, '40 ; Griffiths, '42 ; Morgan and Morgan, '39; Morgan and Waldman, '41 ; Patton and Karn, '41), and that the attack usually includes three types of activity: extremely rapid and vigorous running and leaping, violent convulsions which appear to involve nearly all of the skeletal musculature and often include tic-like movements of the extremities, and finally a comatose state in which the body is relaxed and voluntary movement rarely occurs. Not all attacks include all three of these phases, and many rats are apparently not susceptible to the seizures. I t has been noted that auditorially induced seizures in rats have many features in common with human epilepsy; as incontinence, motor aurae preceding the attack. tremor, eye protrusion, and paralyzing after-effects (Auer and Smith, '40; Morgan and Waldman, '41; Page, '41).
Certain types of human epilepsy are directly correlated with disturbance of cortical function, and in such cases removal of circumscribed cortical areas may eliminate or reduce the frequency and severity of the attacks (Penfield, '36). In the case of the rat the seizures are known to be related to auditory