Glatiramer acetate, an anti-demyelination drug, reduced rats' epileptic seizures, induced by pentylenetetrazol via protection of myelin sheath

Glatiramer acetate (GA) is a clinically prescribed immunomodulator drug used to treat demyelinating disease like multiple sclerosis (MS). Persistent down-regulation in the expression of myelin sheath proteins has been observed in both rats with pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) induced chronic epilepsy and some clinical epilepsy patients. Hypothetically, protection of myelin sheath by pharmaceutical means in the process of epilepsy might, to some extent, be helpful to control epileptic seizures. Therefore, we tried to use GA to treat PTZ-induced epilepsy rats. GA treatment successfully protected rats' myelin sheath from demyelination in the process of PTZ-induced epileptic seizures. Notably, electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring demonstrated that GA-treated epilepsy rats showed significantly lowered epileptiform discharges. Correspondingly, behavioral recording showed reduced frequency of seizures in GA-treated epilepsy rats. The results indicate that epilepsy associated demyelination may be a contributing factor in seizures behavior, and early intervention with anti-demyelination drugs may be beneficial to reduce the severity of seizures behavior. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.