Levetiracetam (LEV) and brivaracetam (BRV) are analogues of piracetam. This series of drug molecules was derived from a γ-butyrolactam ring structure. LEV, (S)-2-(2-oxopyrrolidin-1-yl)butanamide (Figure 58.1), is an…
Benzodiazepines bind to an allosteric site on the neuronal GABAA receptor, a ligand-gated chloride channel, and enhance chloride conductance to hyperpolarize the neuronal membrane, thus augmenting inhibitory…
Status epilepticus (SE) is a true neurologic emergency (1). Both convulsive and nonconvulsive SE affect people of all ages, although it is more common and carries greater…
Hippocrates noted that while epilepsy at birth tended to be resistant to cure, seizures whose origin was in later childhood tended to cease at puberty. Though many…
INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION West syndrome (WS) is a devastating form of epilepsy defined by a triad of infantile spasms, hypsarhythmia, and developmental regression (1,2). The clinical features…
Valproic acid, or valproate (VPA), has been used in the treatment of epilepsy for more than 50 years (1). During this time, it became one of the…
INTRODUCTION: SELF-LIMITED FOCAL EPILEPSIES OF CHILDHOOD The International League Against Epilepsy’s (ILAE’s) revised classification of seizures and epilepsies (1) argues against the older term benign because it…
INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Early discussions on the classification of epilepsy have had a marked and lasting impact upon our current understanding of the disease, and might…
CHEMISTRY, ANIMAL PHARMACOLOGY, AND MECHANISM OF ACTION Sulthiame (STM) is a sulfonamide derivate, N-(4-sulfamoylphenyl)-1,4-butansultam (Figure 63.1), a crystalline powder, with a molecular weight of 290 g/mol (1)….
In the last few years, a new generation of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) has been developed (1,2), with much interest in drugs that work on the gamma-aminobutyric acid…
