A study conducted by the Medical University of Bialystok in Poland has found that the antiepileptic drug levetiracetam can help prevent oxygen-deprived nerve cells from dying.
“Levetiracetam, the a-ethyl analogue of the nootropic piracetam, is a relatively new antiepileptic drug, with a unique chemical structure and mechanism of action,” the authors of the study explained.
“We decided to undertake our study because the scientific reports discussing the putative neuroprotective action of levetiracetam are both scarce and controversial, especially as regards neuronal cultures.”
When neurons from the hippocampus — an area of the brain associated with memory — were deprived of an adequate oxygen supply for 24 hours, the neurons exposed to levetiracetam were more likely to survive than those not exposed to the drug or only exposed to a small amount. The hippocampal neurons were grown in a humidified incubator.
Hippocampal neurons were used for the study because they are particularly vulnerable to the effects of oxygen deprivation, also known as hypoxia.
Oxygen deprivation caused over of a quarter of the neurons not exposed to levetiracetam or only exposed to a small amount to die. In comparison, only 16 percent of neurons exposed to a higher dose died and only 13 percent of neurons exposed to the highest dose died.
Additionally, none of the doses of levetiracetam appeared to have a toxic effects.
“This experimental study demonstrates that a second-generation antiepileptic, levetiracetam, can prevent hypoxia-inducible neuronal injury in cultured hippocampal neurons,” the authors said. “The drug exerts neuroprotective effects only when used in higher concentrations in the culture medium.”
The study was published in 2011 in Volume 49 of Folia Histochemica et Cytobiologica, the official journal of the Polish Histochemical and Cytochemical Society.
