Lamotrigine

Lamotrigine is an anticonvulsant drug used in the treatment of epilepsy and bipolar disorder. For epilepsy it is used to treat partial seizures, primary and secondary tonic-clonic seizures, and seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Lamotrigine also acts as a mood stabilizer. It is the first medication since lithium granted Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the maintenance treatment of bipolar type I. Chemically unrelated to other anticonvulsants, lamotrigine has relatively few side-effects and does not require blood monitoring. (In Vitro):Lamotrigine inhibits Veratrine evoked release of glutamate and aspartate with ED50 values of 21 μM for both amino acids, but Lamotrigine is less potent in the inhibition of GABA release (ED50=44 μM. At concentrations up to 300 μM, LTG has no effect on patassium-evoked amino acid.Lamotrigine is some five times less potent in the inhibition of Veratrine-evoked [3H]acetylcholine release (ED50=100 μM) than in glutamate or aspartate release.(In Vivo):Lamotrigine (IP, 30 min before pentylenetetrazol; 10 mg/kg, 15 mg/kg or 20 mg/kg) decreases the seizure intensity at the higher doses, it increases the latency to the first pentylenetetrazol-induced seizure in all studied doses compared with the controls.