Non-synaptic Antiepileptic Effect of Leucurogin on Epileptiform Activity

During epileptic seizures an extracellular increase of K+ and decrease of Ca++ occur at the extracellular space. Under these circumstances, synaptic transmission is blocked and the seizures are sustained by non-synaptic mechanisms. Therefore, the search for antiepileptic drugs that act on non-synaptic targets can be considered as a powerful strategy in the control of seizures refractory to available drugs. There is evidence that integrins participate in epileptogenesis and therefore constitute a non-synaptic anti-epileptogenic target. In the present work, we investigated the effect of disintegrin leucurogin (LEUC) on non-synaptic epileptiform activities (NEAs) induced in hippocampal slices of rat. Records of the extracellular potential and the intrinsic optical signal (IOS) performed on the granular layer of the dentate gyrus show that, at the 33 μM, LEUC is able to reversibly block induced activities. IOS shows that the blockage extends throughout the granular layer, revealing the reversible non-synaptic antiepileptic potential.