Recent Advances in Antiepileptic Herbal Medicine

Abstract

Background:Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders worldwide, with about 80 percent of cases thought to be in developing nations where it is mostly linked to superstition. The limited supply, high cost as well as low efficacy and adverse side effects of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is a matter of major concern. Herbal medicine has always been traditionally part of treatment of epilepsy. Herbal medicines are generally well tolerated, with fewer side effects.Method:To highlight some herbal extracts that have been studied for their anticonvulsant activity in animal models, literature search from PubMed and Science Direct, was performed. The keywords for the search consisted of combinations of the following terms: Herbal antiepileptic and/or anticonvulsant, botanicals + epilepsy. Literature published in the last five years was considered.Results:Eighteen (18) anticonvulsant herbal agents are reported and discussed. Experiments mostly consisted of phenotypic screens in rodents, with little diversity in screening methods. In most experiments, the tested extracts prolonged the time to onset of seizures and decreased their duration. Most experimenters implicate potentiation of GABAergic activity as the mode of action of the extracts, even though some experimenters did not fully characterise the bioactive chemical composition of their extracts.Conclusion:Potential herbal remedies have shown positive results in animal models. It remains unclear how many make it into clinical trials and eventually making part of the AED list. More rigorous research, applying strict research methodology with uniform herbal combinations, as well as clinical studies are urgently needed.

Dose-Dependent Behavioral and Antioxidant Effects of Quercetin and Methanolic and Acetonic Extracts fromHeterotheca inuloideson Several Rat Tissues following Kainic Acid-InducedStatus Epilepticus

“…seizures induced by PTZ, a chemical agent that is convulsive due to its ability to block the inhibitory response of the GABAergic system, favoring hyperexcitability [57]. The presence of oxidative stress in epilepsy and the ability of some plant extracts to attenuate this oxidative stress have been demonstrated recently in experimental models as well as in patients [58][59][60]. Overall, the present work showed, for the first time, that different doses of acetonic and methanolic extracts of H. inuloides and of the metabolite quercetin significantly increased the activity of the antioxidant enzymes CAT, GPx, GR, and SOD and significantly diminished MDA and PC levels in the brains of rats with induced seizures.…”

Chinese Herbal Medicine for Treating Epilepsy

“…Numerous herbal medicines, such as Ginkgo biloba and Huperzia serrata, have been reported to have antiepileptic or proconvulsant effects (Saxena and Nadkarni, 2011;Sahranavard et al, 2014;Ekstein, 2015;Kakooza-Mwesige, 2015;Shaikh, 2015;Xiao et al, 2015;Cai, 2017;Wei et al, 2017;Manchishi, 2018). The first anti-epilepsy medication resourced from plant is cannabidiol, which is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2018 for treating Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (Samanta, 2019).…”

Preventive Effect of Phaseolus Vulgaris Seed Coats on Pentylenetetrazole (Ptz) Induced Kindling and Behavioral Comorbidities

“…Herbal medicines are usually well-tolerated and have fewer side effects. [5] Most antiepileptic drugs do not prevent or reverse the pathological process that underlies epilepsy, hence the continued search for new treatments with fewer side effects and improved efficacy. [6] Herbal medicine plays a crucial part in meeting the population's primary health care needs, with Africa and Asia being the continents with most users.…”