**4. Materials and Methods**

#### *4.1. Animals*

The procedures of experimental status epilepticus in animals were carried out in compliance with the guidelines of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (the identification code: 2012122105; approval date was 01 August 2013) and were certificated by the experimental animal ethics committee at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. A sample of 168 pathogen-free adult male Sprague Dawley rats (weight ranged from 280–350 g) were obtained from BioLASCO Taiwan Co. Ltd. (Taipei, Taiwan) and enrolled in the study. The animals were housed in the Center for Laboratory Animals in an environmentally controlled room (12 h/12 h light/dark cycle; 24 ± 1 ◦C). Tap water and rat chow in the laboratory were available ad libitum. All efforts were made to reduce the number of animals used and to minimize animal suffering during the experiment.
