Studies on the nutritional basis of abnormal behavior in albino rats; the effect of pyridoxine deficiency upon sound-induced magnesium tetany (1945)

After a magnesium deficient diet for 5 to 8 days, young rats showed vasodilatation, hyperirritability, and latent tetany. Brief exposures to the sound of a resonated buzzer elicited severe tonic-clonic convulsions. When such a diet was continued for 10 to 23 days, sensitivity increased with death resulting from spontaneous or induced seizures. In a similar group of rats, such symptoms disappeared in 80% when magnesium was replaced in the deficient diet. A superimposed pyridoxine deficiency eliminated or diminished vasodilatation and diminished the severity of the seizures

PATTON RA, LONGENECKER HE. Studies on the nutritional basis of abnormal behavior in albino rats; the effect of pyridoxine deficiency upon sound-induced magnesium tetany. J Comp Psychol (Baltim). 1945 Dec;38:319-34. doi: 10.1037/h0054417. PMID: 21010761.