Anticonvulsants in bipolar disorder

Abstract

Anticonvulsant drugs are widely used in psychiatric indications. This includes alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms, panic and anxiety disorders, dementia, schizophrenia, and to some extent personality disorders. Besides pain syndromes, their main domain outside epilepsy, however, is bipolar disorder. Carbamazepine, valproate, and lamotrigine are meanwhile recognized mood stabilizers, but several other antiepileptic drugs have also been tried out with diverging or inconclusive results. Understanding the mechanisms of action and identifying similarities between anticonvulsants effective in bipolar disorder may also enhance our understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of the disorder.

Antiepileptic use for epilepsy and nonepilepsy disorders

“…These agents were selected as they have been studied and used in the treatment of conditions other than epilepsy. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Statistical analysis. Patient demographics were summarized based on the most recent year (i.e., April 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013) for AED users with and without epilepsy.…”

En mann i 40-årene med flere krampeanfall

“…Several studies have found that epilepsy and affective disorders have many common pathophysiological features (20 -24). Extensive comorbidity of affective disorders, particularly depressions (25), bipolarity (26,27) and epilepsy, the discovery of an increasing number of common pathogenetic features and the benefit derived from anticonvulsants and antidepressants by patients in both diagnostic groups (28) indicate that these two conditions are more closely related than previously believed.…”

Encephalopathy Associated with Psychotropic Drug Therapy

“…Since several antiepileptic drugs have been widely prescribed as effective mood stabilizers in psychiatric practice (Grunze, 2010), all psychiatrists should be familiar with adverse phenomena associated with them. With widespread use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a characteristic discrete focal lesion limited to the central area of the splenium of the corpus callosum has been recognized to occur in epileptic patients receiving antiepileptic drugs (S.S. Kim et al, 1999;Polster et al, 2001).…”