ANTIEPILEPTIC DRUGS (AEDs) are primarily intended to prevent epileptic seizures. They are also beneficial in diverse non-epileptic conditions and are commonly used in the treatment of migraine headache, neuropathic pain and bipolar affective disorder. AEDs can also be useful for treating essential tremor, myotonia, dystonia, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, restless legs syndrome, social phobia, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and alcohol dependence and withdrawal 1 .Around two-dozen distinct molecular entities are marketed worldwide for epilepsy (BOX 1). To exhibit antiepileptic activity, a drug must act on one or more target molecules in the brain. These targets include ion channels, neurotransmitter transporters and neurotransmitter metabolic enzymes. The ultimate effects of these interactions are to modify the bursting properties of neurons and to reduce synchronization in localized neuronal ensembles. In addition, AEDs inhibit the spread of abnormal firing to distant sites, which is required for the expression of behavioural seizure activity. GENERALIZED ABSENCE SEIZURES, unlike other seizure types, are believed to result from thalamocortical synchronization. Interference with the rhythm-generating mechanisms that underlie the synchronized activity in this circuit is necessary to abort these seizures. It is convenient to categorize AED actions according to those that involve (1) modulation of voltage-gated ion channels; (2) enhancement of synaptic inhibition; and (3) inhibition of synaptic excitation. Voltage-gated

Resistance to drug treatment is an important hurdle in the therapy of many brain disorders, including brain cancer, epilepsy, schizophrenia, depression and infection of the brain with HIV. Consequently, there is a pressing need to develop new and more effective treatment strategies. Mechanisms of resistance that operate in cancer and infectious diseases might also be relevant in drug-resistant brain disorders. In particular, drug efflux transporters that are expressed at the blood-brain barrier limit the ability of many drugs to access the brain. There is increasing evidence that drug efflux transporters have an important role in drug-resistant brain disorders, and this information should allow more efficacious treatment strategies to be developed.

Animal models for seizures and epilepsy have played a fundamental role in advancing our understanding of basic mechanisms underlying ictogenesis and epileptogenesis and have been instrumental in the discovery and preclinical development of novel antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). However, there is growing concern that the efficacy of drug treatment of epilepsy has not substantially improved with the introduction of new AEDs, which, at least in part, may be due to the fact that the same simple screening models, i.e., the maximal electroshock seizure (MES) and s.c. pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) seizure tests, have been used as gatekeepers in AED discovery for >6 decades. It has been argued that these old models may identify only drugs that share characteristics with existing drugs, and are unlikely to have an effect on refractory epilepsies. Indeed, accumulating evidence with several novel AEDs, including levetiracetan, has shown that the MES and PTZ models do not identify all potential AEDs but instead may fail to discover compounds that have great potential efficacy but work through mechanisms not tested by these models. Awareness of the limitations of acute seizure models comes at a critical crossroad. Clearly, preclinical strategies of AED discovery and development need a conceptual shift that is moving away from using models that identify therapies for the symptomatic treatment of epilepsy to those that may be useful for identifying therapies that are more effective in the refractory population and that may ultimately lead to an effective cure in susceptible individuals by interfering with the processes underlying epilepsy. To realize this goal, the molecular mechanisms of the next generation of therapies must necessarily evolve to include targets that contribute to epileptogenesis and pharmacoresistance in relevant epilepsy models.

Despite scientific advances in understanding the causes and treatment of human malignancy, a persistent challenge facing basic and clinical investigators is how to adequately treat primary and metastatic brain tumors.The blood-brain barrier is a physiologic obstruction to the delivery of systemic chemotherapy to the brain parenchyma and central nervous system (CNS). A number of physiologic properties make the endothelium in the CNS distinct from the vasculature found in the periphery. Recent evidence has shown that a critical aspect of this barrier is composed of xenobiotic transporters which extrude substrates from the brain into the cerebrospinal fluid and systemic circulation. These transporters also extrude drugs and toxins if they gain entry into the cytoplasm of brain endothelial cells before they enter the brain. This review highlights the properties of the blood-brain barrier, including the location, function, and relative importance of the drug transporters that maintain this barrier. Primary and metastatic brain malignancy can compromise this barrier, allowing some access of chemotherapy treatment to reach the tumor.The responsiveness of brain tumors to systemic treatment found in past clinical research is discussed, as are possible explanations as to why CNS tumors are nonetheless able to evade therapy. Finally, strategies to overcome this barrier and better deliver chemotherapy into CNS tumors are presented.Despite the dramatic advances in understanding the molecular basis for carcinogenesis and the development of new targeting agents to treat malignancies, a critical challenge that continues to face cancer researchers is overcoming the sanctuary for primary and metastatic disease found within the central nervous system (CNS). Brain metastases occur in a significant percentage of patients with common malignancies, with 5-year cumulative incidence rates of 16% in lung cancer patients, 7% of breast cancer patients, and 5% of patients with colon cancer (1). In diseases such as melanoma, the incidence of brain metastatic disease is reported to be as high as 55% (2). Autopsy studies show that in patients who die from cancer, up to 25% of them develop brain metastases (3).The incidence of brain metastatic disease is on the rise (4). This could be due to a number of factors, including earlier brain screening for CNS disease in cancers known to spread to the brain; improved and more widely available radiological techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging; and improved therapies to treat systemic disease, which are prolonging survival and, in turn, increasing the risk of developing metastases to the brain. The irony is that as our therapies are improving clinical outcomes and prolonging survival, the incidence of CNS disease is on the rise. Furthermore, primary brain malignancies are intrinsically resistant to most chemotherapies for reasons that are poorly understood. These realities demand that we better understand, and learn how to treat, CNS malignancy.This CNS sanctuary for metastatic as well...

Despite the introduction of over 15 third-generation anti-epileptic drugs, current medications fail to control seizures in 20-30% of patients. However, our understanding of the mechanisms mediating the development of epilepsy and the causes of drug resistance has grown substantially over the past decade, providing opportunities for the discovery and development of more efficacious anti-epileptic and anti-epileptogenic drugs. In this Review we discuss how previous preclinical models and clinical trial designs may have hampered the discovery of better treatments. We propose that future anti-epileptic drug development may be improved through a new joint endeavour between academia and the industry, through the identification and application of tools for new target-driven approaches, and through comparative preclinical proof-of-concept studies and innovative clinical trials designs.

No abstract

Summary:The blood-brain barrier (BBB) contributes to brain homeostasis by protecting the brain from potentially harmful endogenous and exogenous substances. BBB active drug efflux transporters of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) gene family are increasingly recognized as important determinants of drug distribution to, and elimination from, the CNS. The ABC efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (Pgp) has been demonstrated as a key element of the BBB that can actively transport a huge variety of lipophilic drugs out of the brain capillary endothelial cells that form the BBB. In addition to Pgp, other ABC efflux transporters such as members of the multidrug resistance protein (MRP) family and breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) seem to contribute to BBB function. Consequences of ABC efflux transporters in the BBB include minimizing or avoiding neurotoxic adverse effects of drugs that otherwise would penetrate into the brain. However, ABC efflux transporters may also limit the central distribution of drugs that are beneficial to treat CNS diseases. Furthermore, neurological disorders such as epilepsy may be associated with overexpression of ABC efflux transporters at the BBB, resulting in pharmacoresistance to therapeutic medication. Therefore, modulation of ABC efflux transporters at the BBB forms a novel strategy to enhance the penetration of drugs into the brain and may yield new therapeutic options for drug-resistant CNS diseases.

SUMMARYDespite the development of various new antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) since the early 1990s, the available evidence indicates that the efficacy and tolerability of drug treatment of epilepsy has not substantially improved. What are the reasons for this apparent failure of modern AED development to discover drugs with higher efficacy? One reason is certainly the fact that, with few exceptions, all AEDs have been discovered by the same conventional animal models, particularly the maximal electroshock seizure test (MES) in rodents, which served as a critical gatekeeper. These tests have led to useful new AEDs, but obviously did not help developing AEDs with higher efficacy in as yet AED-resistant patients. This concern is not new but, surprisingly, has largely been unappreciated for several decades. A second-admittedly speculative-reason is that progress in pharmacologic treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy will not be made unless and until we develop drugs that specifically target the underlying disease. Although better preclinical approaches will not be able to circumvent regulatory requirements, more efficacious drugs may allow us to abandon clinically questionable trials with intentionally less efficacious controls and noninferiority designs, and require evidence for comparative effectiveness. The failure of AED development has led to increasing disappointment among clinicians, basic scientists, and industry and may halt any further improvement in the treatment of epilepsy unless we find ways out of this dilemma. Therefore, we need new concepts and fresh thinking about how to radically change and improve AED discovery and development. In this respect, the authors of this critical review will discuss several new ideas that may hopefully lead to more efficacious drug treatment of epilepsy in the future.