The efficacy and tolerability of lamotrigine adjunctive/monotherapy in patients with partial seizures refractory to poly-AEDs

Objective： This study was designed as an open-label trial to assess the effects of changing the antiepileptic drugs （AEDs） regimen to lamotrigine （LTG） as adjunctive/monotherapy in patients with partial seizures who were dissatisfied with their drug regimen because of intractable seizures. Methods： The patients were recruited from mulficenters using the following criteria： age≥ 18 years; at least 3 seizures per month during the last 16 weeks; previous use of at least 3 AEDs. The study involved a baseline phase and 2 experimental phases： LTG was first added to the regimen, and then patients could gradually change to LTG monotherapy if their seizures were reduced by at least 50 percent/month. Tolerability, the primary end point, was assessed using the Liverpool Adverse Experience Profile （LAEP）. Secondary end points included quality of life, as measured with the Quality of Life in Epilepsy-31 inventory. Reductions in seizures from baseline throughout each phase were also analyzed. Results： One hundred and fourteen patients aged between 18 and 52 years （age 27.8___ 13.2 years; 71 men and 43 women） were enrolled. After adding LTG, 105 patients （92.11%） Completed adjunctive therapy. Upon completion of the adjunctive phase, mean improvement from baseline was 2.6 points on the LAEP （p=0.037）. The overall score on the QOLIE-31 improved by 8.49 points from baseline （p=0.023）. At the end of the trial, 26 （22.81%） of patients completed LTG monotherapy, and 65 patients （57.02%） experienced at least 50% reduction in seizure frequency compared to baseline, The mean improvement from baseline was 5.1 points on the LAEP （p=0.0059）, and the overall score on the QOLIE-31 score improved by 12,72 points from baseline（p=0,0071）. Twenty-two （19.30%） patients reported adverse effects and 9 patients discontinued participation in the trial because of adverse effects. Conclusion： For patients with partial seizures who were dissatisfied with their AED regimen because of intractable seizures, adding LTG to the drug regimen was well tolerated and effective in improving the quality of life and controlling seizures. Furthermore, switching to LTG monotherapy was associated with further improvement.

Effect of Second-generation Antiepileptic Drugs on Diplopia:A Metaanalysis of Placebo-controlled Studies

Different antiepileptic drugs(AEDs) may cause similar adverse effects,one of which is diplopia.However,the AEDs causing diplopia and the dose-response effect of each drug remains uncertain.In this study,we compared several second-generation AEDs to find out whether they would contribute to the risk of diplopia and their effect-causing dose.A meta-analysis was performed on 19 studies in agreement with our inclusion criteria.The results showed that eight commonly used second-generation AEDs(gabapentin,levetiracetam,oxcarbazepine,lamotrigine,pregabalin,topiramate,vigabatrin and zonisamide) could cause diplopia.The reported odds ratios(ORs) ranged from 1.406 to 7.996.Ranking risks from the highest to the lowest ORs of the eight AEDs of any dose resulted in the following order:use of oxcarbazepine(7.996),levetiracetam(7.472),lamotrigine(5.258),vigabatrin(3.562),pregabalin(3.048),topiramate(2.660),gabapentin(1.966),zonisamide(1.406).Taking into account the ORs above,we can conclude that second-generation AEDs of any dose may cause diplopia.However,the levetiracetam-caused diplopia needs to be further studied according to the data(OR,7.472;95% confidence interval,0.375-148.772).These findings ask for better concerns about patients’ quality of life when giving antiepileptic treatments.

The Hypothesis of Hyperia from the Perspective of Neuronal Plasticity

We analyze certain mental automatisms appearing in the consciousness with phenomenological features of simple partial seizures (SPSs). We propose to include all these phenomena into a cognitive function to which we term hyperia. In this paper, we analyze the similarities between the nature of this cognitive function and the mechanisms used by our brain to elicit neuronal plasticity.

Stochastic fluctuations of permittivity coupling regulate seizure dynamics in partial epilepsy

Partial epilepsy is characterized by recurrent seizures that arise from a localized pathological brain region. During the onset of partial epilepsy, the seizure evolution commonly exhibits typical timescale separation phenomenon. This timescale separation behavior can be mimicked by a paradigmatic model termed as Epileptor, which consists of coupled fast-slow neural populations via a permittivity variable. By incorporating permittivity noise into the Epileptor model, we show here that stochastic fluctuations of permittivity coupling participate in the modulation of seizure dynamics in partial epilepsy. In particular, introducing a certain level of permittivity noise can make the model produce more comparable seizure-like events that capture the temporal variability in realistic partial seizures. Furthermore, we observe that with the help of permittivity noise our stochastic Epileptor model can trigger the seizure dynamics even when it operates in the theoretical nonepileptogenic regime. These findings establish a deep mechanistic understanding on how stochastic fluctuations of permittivity coupling shape the seizure dynamics in partial epilepsy,and provide insightful biological implications.