Chapter: Biochemical Pharmacology : Drugs that act on sodium and potassium channels
Sodium channel blockers in epilepsia
Sodium channel blockers in
epilepsia
Another field of application
for sodium channel blockers is epilepsia. While epileptic seizures are a
diverse and com-plex phenomenon, a key feature consists in bursts of excess
excitatory activity of neurons in the brain. Sodium chan-nel blockers will
reduce nerve cell excitability, and they are thus one of the mainstays of
anti-epileptic treatment. As but one example out of many7, Figure
5.10 shows pheny-toin (or diphenylhydantoine).
Properties of phenytoin are
• good penetration of blood brain barrier;
• action on several cation
channels besides Na V. The contribution of these to the therapeutic effect is
unsettled;
• strong enzyme induction
(hepatic metabolism, CYP3A3). This gives rise to multiple drug interactions.
These characteristics are
quite common among antiepilep-tic drugs.
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