Science News

Study in mice highlights alternative anti-inflammatory approach to epilepsy management If common anticonvulsant drugs fail to manage epileptic seizures, then perhaps the anti-inflammatory* route is the way to go. That's according to Mattia Maroso and colleagues from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy, who found that giving mice repeated doses of a specific enzyme inhibitor significantly reduced both chronic epileptic activity and acute seizures. Their findings, published online in the Springer journal Neurotherapeutics, open up the possibility of a new target system for anticonvulsant drug intervention, to control epileptic activity that does not respond to certain anticonvulsant treatments.An enzyme known as ICE/Caspase-1 is involved in epileptic seizures; it induces inflammatory processes by producing IL-1beta, a pro-inflammatory molecule, in brain regions where epileptic activity originates and spreads. Mattia Maroso and colleagues looked at the elective inhibitor for th