Effect of antioxidants in temporal lobe epilepsy

Abstract

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder that affects around 70 million people in the world, which represents approximately 1%of the world population. Seizures are transitory episodes produced by excessive neuronal discharges. They are characterized bytransient behavioral changes that are caused by abnormal and excessive neuronal synchronization in the brain. These episodes canbe triggered by genetic or acquired factors that alter normal brain function such as autoimmune diseases, genetic mutations,encephalopathies, head trauma, cerebrovascular accidents, febrile seizures or statusepilepticus. Temporal lobe epilepsy is a seriousneurological disorder, which represents 60% to 70% of drug-resistant epilepsy, and is an important form of epilepsy acquired byany of the factors mentioned. Seizures can generate recurrent cycles of excitotoxicity and oxidative stress that cause neuronaldamage and cell death. Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the endogenous antioxidant system and the overproduction ofreactive oxygen species (ROS), consequently, oxidation of proteins, lipids and nucleic acids occurs in the brain, resulting inapoptosis, proteopathies, mitochondrial dysfunction, glial cell activation and neuroinflammation. ROS are responsible for thegeneration of oxidative stress and could be involved in neuronal damage that contributes to the establishment of epileptogenesis andspontaneous seizures in patients and experimental models. The administration of agents with antioxidant and anti-inflammatoryproperties could represent a therapeutic alternative aimed at reducing oxidative stress during epileptogenesis or seizures to reducethe severity of the pathological processes involved, and thus attenuate the neurobiological consequences that occur in temporal lobeepilepsy.