查看文章

Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are commonly prescribed for nonepileptic conditions, including migraine headache, chronic neuropathic pain, mood disorders, schizophrenia and various neuromuscular syndromes. In many of these conditions, as in epilepsy, the drugs act by modifying the excitability of nerve (or muscle) through effects on voltage-gated sodium and calcium channels or by promoting inhibition mediated by γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) A receptors. In neuropathic pain, chronic nerve injury is associated with the redistribution and altered subunit compositions of sodium and calcium channels that predispose neurons in sensory pathways to fire spontaneously or at inappropriately high frequencies, often from ectopic sites. AEDs may counteract this abnormal activity by selectively affecting pain-specific firing; for example, many AEDs suppress high-frequency action potentials by blocking voltage-activated …