Does Levetiracetam Not Only Stop Seizures but Improve the Actual Working of the Brain?

In the September 24 issue of the journal, Neurology, Doctors Wandschneider and colleagues from a number of European centers sought to address whether Levetiracetam is helpful in improving activation and deactivation patterns in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. 

It’s been found that on functional MRI studies, valproic acid may have dose dependent normalization of impaired deactivation of the motor system in people with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. The authors hypothesize that patients on Levetiracetam may show greater deactivation within temporal lobe networks compared to those without Levetiracetam.

The investigators tested this hypothesis through a retrospective study by comparing task-related FMRI activations and deactivations in 53 people with left and 54 people with right temporal lobe epilepsy treated with and without Levetiracetam. In people on Levetiracetam, activation patterns were correlated with their daily dose of the drug. 

The authors found that people on Levetiracetam showed normalization of functional network deactivations in the right temporal lobe and right temporal lobe epilepsy during the right lateralizing visual spatial task and in the left temporal lobe in the left temporal lobe epilepsy during the verbal task. 

A significant dose-dependent effect was demonstrated in right temporal lobe epilepsy during the visual spatial task and the lower the Levetiracetam dose the greater the abnormal activation. Both hippocampi were more abnormally activated in patients with lower doses but more prominently on the left.

The authors concluded that Levetiracetam is associated with restoration of normal activation patterns and that longitudinal studies are necessary to establish whether the neural patterns translate to a true drug response.