title: Chronic treatment with levetiracetam reverses deficits in hippocampal LTP in vivo in experimental temporal lobe epilepsy rats.
abstract: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), the common form of epilepsy in adults, often displays complex partial seizures and cognitive deficits. The underlying mechanisms of such deficits are not yet well understood. Many contributing factors, such as initial epileptogenic lesion, seizure type, age of onset, and treatment side effects have been proposed. Levetiracetam (LEV) is a novel anti-epileptic drug (AED) used to treat partial seizures and idiopathic generalized epilepsy. It has been suggested that LEV exerts antiepileptic properties by modulation of synaptic release of neurotransmitters. However, its neuroprotective effects on learning and memory are not yet well demonstrated. Here we showed the impairment of spatial memory in the pilocarpine-induced experimental TLE rats, which can be improved by LEV. Furthermore, we found chronic LEV treatment partially reversed the SE-induced synaptic dysfunction in hippocampal LTP induction in vivo. In addition, LEV treatment can alleviate the SE-induced abnormal GluR1 phosphorylation at Ser(831) site, which may contribute to the rescue of synaptic transmission. These results indicate the neuroprotective role for LEV while it exhibits an antiseizure effect on experimental epileptic models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Tongji University Affiliated Tenth People's Hospital, 200072 Shanghai, PR China.
authors.forename: Yu-Xing
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Tongji University Affiliated Tenth People's Hospital, 200072 Shanghai, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiang-Zhu
authors.initials: XZ
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Tongji University Affiliated Tenth People's Hospital, 200072 Shanghai, PR China.
authors.forename: Ying-Ying
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Tongji University Affiliated Tenth People's Hospital, 200072 Shanghai, PR China. Electronic address: liuxy_shtj@yeah.net.
authors.forename: Xue-Yuan
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology*; D000077287:Levetiracetam; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D018721:Muscarinic Agonists; D018696:Neuroprotective Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D010862:Pilocarpine; D010889:Piracetam / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000031:analogs & derivatives*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D065852:Spatial Memory / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D000927:Anticonvulsants; D018721:Muscarinic Agonists; D018696:Neuroprotective Agents; D010862:Pilocarpine; D000077287:Levetiracetam; D010889:Piracetam
keywords: AMPA receptor; Cognitive deficit; Levetiracetam; Long-term potentiation; Temporal lobe epilepsy