Antiepileptic drugs can improve the cognitive function of some patients with Alzheimer's disease

According to a study published in the Journal of Neurology of the American Medical Association on September 27, a cheap anti-epileptic drug can significantly improve the learning, memory and other recognition of Alzheimer’s patients with epileptic activity in the brain.

Know function

"This is a drug used to treat epilepsy," said Keith Vossel, MD, MD, director of the Mary Easton Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and lead investigator of clinical trials at UCLA.
Say
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"We used it in this study for Alzheimer's patients with evidence of silent epilepsy activity, which is a brain activity similar to epilepsy, but without related body twitches

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the main cause of dementia worldwide
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Early symptoms include short-term memory loss, decreased problem-solving ability, difficulty finding words, and difficulty in spatial navigation

Dr.
Wossel’s early research showed that patients who experience silent epileptic activity in the brain decline faster in cognitive function
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The researchers chose to test the anti-epileptic drug levetiracetam, which was approved by the U.

In this study, 54 patients with mild symptoms of Alzheimer's disease used electroencephalogram (EEG) to monitor their silent epileptic activity at night, and one hour of magnetoencephalogram (MEG) to record electrical activity Of electromagnetic waves
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Dr.
Vossel explained: “Magnetoencephalography can capture epileptic activity that EEG cannot capture because it observes different brain cell populations
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Among the patients screened, 34 patients were eligible to participate in the study.
Nearly 40% of the patients had epileptic activity, and the remaining patients had no epileptic activity (patients taking antiepileptic drugs due to previous seizure disorders were excluded before screening)
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These patients were then divided into two groups.
One group took a placebo for 4 weeks, followed by no medication for the next 4 weeks, and then took 125 mg of levetiracetam twice a day for 4 weeks
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The second group received the same treatment in the reverse order

During the study, the researchers tested the patients' ability to solve problems, reason, remember words, and their navigation skills
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For example, they use a driving simulator on a computer monitor to let participants learn to navigate street routes in a virtual city

Researchers found that the cognitive function of patients treated with levetiracetam showed a trend of improvement, but when the patients were divided into patients with silent epilepsy activity and those without silent epilepsy activity, patients with silent epilepsy activity obviously benefited from this Drugs
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Dr.
Vossel said: "There is a very clear difference between the two groups
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" "Alzheimer's disease has a subtype, which can be regarded as a kind of epileptic lesions, this disease is very common, about 60% of patients All have this disease

When doctors diagnose Alzheimer's disease, they usually do not detect silent epilepsy, so the results of this study may prompt them to consider whether the patient has potential epileptic activity
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He said: "There are some clinical features that indicate that patients with Alzheimer's are more likely to have silent seizure activity
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" "The most important thing is that the age of symptoms is under 65.

" In fact, he said, this The medication also seems to be beneficial for young patients, even if they have no detectable seizure activity
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The patients in the study are already taking currently approved drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, and this study shows that levetiracetam improves cognitive function better than current treatment alone
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Future research will need to find out whether long-term use of this drug can slow the progression of the disease
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Dr.
Wossel said: "The purpose of this study is to look for improvements in cognitive abilities during short-term treatment
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" "There are other studies underway to see if this drug can help slow the disease in a longer period of time.
" Progress," he added, and UCLA’s future research will focus on recruiting a more diverse research population and testing other anti-epileptic drugs
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DOI

10.
1001/jamaneurol.
2021.
3310