Abstract: Objective To study the effects of low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on the expression of NGF and c-FOS in the hippocampus of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) rats. Methods Lithium-pilocarpine induced TLE rat models were randomly divided into TLE group and rTMS group. Control group consist of normal rats which were littermate with the other two groups. TMS was performed at 0.5 Hz, 0.4T for 0.2ms and 20 times per day for one week on rTMS group rats. TLE group and control group rats were treated with sonic stimulation as pseudo stimuli for the same times as rTMS group. With immunohistochemical technique, we investigated the differences expression of c-Fos and NGF in the hippocampus among the three groups. Results c-Fos and NGF was positively expressed in the hippocampus of all groups. c-Fos expression level of TLE group was higher than cotrol group (p<0.01). With appropriate rTMS treatment, the expression of c-Fos of TLE rats was significantly decreased (P <0.01) but was still significantly higher than control group (p<0.01). The expression of NGF of TLE group was significantly lower than control group (P <0.01). With appropriate rTMS treatment, NGF expression of TLE group was significantly increased (P <0.01). Conclusion Appropriate rTMS can reduce the c-FOS expression while increase the NGF expression in the hippocampus of TLE rats, which plays a neuroprotective role in improving the pathological damage of epilepsy.

Key words: Electromagnetic Fields, Evoked Potentials, Motor, Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe, Hippocampus, Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos, 神经生长因子类