Epilepsy Drug Boosts Memory
A medication used to control seizures may have an application for Alzheimer's disease. Also this week, scientists unlock a key secret to psychosis treatment and pegging a protein as the culprit in type 1 diabetes.
Knocking Out Seizures in Alzheimer's Mice
The anti-epilepsy drug levetiracetam successfully reversed brain and behavioral abnormalities in mice bred to develop Alzheimer's disease-like symptoms, according to Lennart Mucke, PhD, from University of California San Francisco, and colleagues.
Seizures are common among patients with Alzheimer's disease, as are abnormalities in neuronal network activity. Therefore, to see if anticonvulsive treatment could influence Alzheimer's disease activity and progression, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis recorded EEG activity in mice that overexpress human amyloid precursor protein, and found that the number of abnormal cortical and hippocampal spikes was halved with continuous administration of levetiracetam. None of the other epilepsy drugs tested, including gabapentin, valproic acid, and pregabalin, had this effect.
The treatment also reversed behavioral abnormalities and prevented impairments in long-term memory and spatial learning in the experimental animals, but lost these benefits once the treatment was withdrawn. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers concluded that because the drug is approved and has a good safety profile, "its therapeutic potential deserves to be further explored."
-- Nancy Walsh
...synaptic and cognitive deficits in an Alzheimer’s disease model 10.1073/pnas...In light of the rising prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), new strategies...synaptic and cognitive deficits in an Alzheimer's disease model. | In light of the...
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