title: Cognitive effects of GABAergic antiepileptic drugs.
abstract: Many patients undergoing long-term treatment of epilepsy complain of memory disorders, which entail worse quality of life. The risk factors generating memory disorders include: morphological brain damage, the duration and course of epileptic seizures (conscience disorders), the time of diagnosis (the risk is greater if epileptic seizures start early in life), drug resistance, the presence of interseizure changes in the EEG in the form of sharp-wave discharges or sharp spike-wave/ slow spike-wave complexes and improper pharmacotherapy (exceeding the admissible concentration of drugs in blood serum, polytherapy). GABAergic neurotransmission of older antiepileptic drugs (barbiturates, benzodiazepines) makes them particularly prone to produce modest, but statistically significant disruption of cognitive processes. This explains the search for new antiepileptic drugs that will improve, or at least not impair, cognitive functions. The improvement of cognitive functions by new generation antiepileptic drugs results, among others, from their non-GABAergic mechanisms: they influence the ion channels and glutaminergic transmission.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacoeconomics and Social Pharmacy, University of Medical Sciences in Poznan, Poznan, Poland.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Czubak
authors.forename: Elzbieta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Nowakowska
authors.forename: Kinga
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Burda
authors.forename: Krzysztof
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kus
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Metelska
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000523:psychology; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000150:complications* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology*; D018682:GABA Agents / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D000927:Anticonvulsants; D018682:GABA Agents