Retigabine: Has the Orphan Found a Home?

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between the apolipoprotein (ApoE) 4 allele and memory performance (verbal and nonverbal) in patients with medically intractable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) who underwent temporal lobectomy.METHODS: Presurgical and postsurgical memory performance was examined in 87 adult patients with TLE (4 = 22; non-4 = 65) to determine whether the expression of ApoE-4 may be associated with memory performance in this population and to examine how this relationship may be affected by duration of epilepsy. RESULTS: There was a significant interaction between ApoE-4 status and duration of epilepsy such that 4 carriers with a long duration of epilepsy demonstrated the poorest memory performance on both verbal and nonverbal measures. This relationship was observed both before and after temporal lobectomy, with little change in test performance over time. CONCLUSIONS: The ApoE-4 allele interacts with longstanding seizures to affect memory performance, both verbal and nonverbal, in patients with medically intractable temporal lobe epilepsy.

The Mechanism of Abrupt Transition between Theta and Hyper-Excitable Spiking Activity in Medial Entorhinal Cortex Layer II Stellate Cells

“…Our experiments (see Supporting Text S1 and Figure S8 ) show the timing of rapid synaptic feedback is similar to that of SC DAPs which are amplified by M-current block implying a role for the M-current in preventing high frequency neural discharges. This finding suggests a possible method of action for retigabine, an M-current enhancer currently under investigation for therapeutic use for its anti-convulsant properties [55] . Our results suggest that a drug such as retigabine would decrease burst duration by making fast time scale spike generation more difficult.…”

Ezogabine: A New Angle on Potassium Gates

“…The original developer in Dresden, Germany, found it as one of a family of aminopyrroles with anticonvulsant activity. Since initial reports in the mid-1990s (2), EZG has followed a long and winding course toward regulatory approval (3). This was less because of issues intrinsic to the drug and more because of shifts in corporate licensing.…”