News Release
NC State Researcher Discovers Potential New Treatment for Epilepsy
Media Contact(s)
Tracey Peake, News Services, (919) 515-6142
Dec. 18, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A researcher at North Carolina State University has discovered that a drug currently thought to be useful in treating sleep disorders may also be helpful in controlling seizures in patients with a traditionally drug-resistant form of epilepsy.
Dr. Doodipala Reddy, assistant professor of molecular biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, has demonstrated that the drug Gaboxadol is effective in controlling seizures in animals with temporal lobe epilepsy, a form of the disease which is often resistant to drug therapy.
In his previous research, Reddy had studied how neurosteroids, which are steroids that the human body produces naturally, provide protection against the repeated seizures caused by temporal lobe epilepsy. When Reddy examined the chemical mechanism of Gaboxadol, he noted that it was similar to that of naturally occurring neurosteroids, and that it might perform a similar role in suppressing the neural overactivity that can lead to seizures.
Reddy tested the drug on epileptic rats and found that the treatment did markedly reduce the intensity and number of spontaneous seizures. He presented his findings at the Nov. 5 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, and is now conducting behavioral studies to look at the possible neurological side effects of Gaboxadol.
"Our findings were that this drug worked much better than even we expected," Reddy says. "Our goal is to develop a drug therapy for these epilepsy patients that will improve their quality of life, without side-effects."
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