The present study was designed to investigate the effects of fluoxetine (FXT), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, on the effect of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in the maximal electroshock seizure (MES) model in mice. FXT at the doses of 25, 20 and 15 mg/kg significantly increased the electroconvulsive threshold. The antidepressant applied at the lower doses (10, 5 and 2.5 mg/kg) did not in...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to determine whether seizure susceptibility due to antihistamines is provoked in patients with febrile seizures. METHODS The current descriptive study was carried out from April 2009 to February 2011 in 250 infants and children who visited the Madinah Maternity and Children's Hospital as a result of febrile convulsions. They were divided into two group...

Seizures are a symptom and not a disease. A seizure is the result of an abnormal electrical discharge of a collection or group of living but damaged or abnormal neurons. When the group of neurons is in the cerebral cortex, a focal or partial seizure occurs , producing abnormal activity related to that part of the brain. The victim may experience a focal jerking or focal numbness, or flashing li...

Epilepsy is one of the most frequent neurological alterations affecting significantly the quality of life of the individuals who suffer it. Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) is one of the most severe types of epilepsies commonly presented in the world population. It is characterized by neuronal damage in regions of the limbic system, such as the amygdala and the hippocampus (mesial temporal lobe scl...

PURPOSE To examine the implementation of the clinical practice guideline "first epileptic seizure and epilepsy in adulthood" published in 2008 to patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy between 2008 and 2014. METHOD This retrospective, population-based analysis was performed on patient data of 4.1 million insurants from the German statutory health insurance. Prevalent and incident cases in adu...

Valproate is one of the most frequently used anticonvulsive drugs in children and adults. Valproate is a generally well tolerated medication. However, encephalopathy with or without hyperammonemia is one of its rare adverse events. We present a 7-year-old girl who suffered from epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizures and absence epilepsy. She was initially treated with topiramate. Methy...

Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic neurologic diseases, yet approximately one-third of affected patients do not respond to anticonvulsive drugs that target neurons or neuronal circuits. Reactive astrocytes are commonly found in putative epileptic foci and have been hypothesized to be disease contributors because they lose essential homeostatic capabilities. However, since brain patholog...

A ketogenic diet (KD) is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate metabolic regimen; its effectiveness in the treatment of refractory epilepsy suggests that the mechanisms underlying its anticonvulsive effects differ from those targeted by conventional antiepileptic drugs. Recently, KD and analogous metabolic strategies have shown therapeutic promise in other neurologic disorders, such as reducing brain in...

In view of the data indicating that insulin can modify penetration of some drugs across cell membranes and tissue barriers, particularly the blood-brain barrier, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of insulin on both the anticonvulsant activity and the brain concentration of carbamazepine in mice suffering from seizures induced by maximal electroshock. The antiepileptic drug...

Group-III metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR4, -6, -7, and -8) modulate neurotoxicity of excitatory amino acids and beta-amyloid-peptide (betaAP), as well as epileptic convulsions, most likely via presynaptic inhibition of glutamatergic neurotransmission. Due to the lack of subtype-selective ligands for group-III receptors, we previously utilized knock-out mice to identify mGluR4 as the pr...