Antiepileptic drugs and cognition

Women with epilepsy who take more than one drug to control their seizures may have children who perform less well at school. Researchers from Karolinska University Hospital and the University of Lund in Sweden studied 1,308,318 children born between 1973 and 1986; 1,235 of them were born to mothers with epilepsy who took more-than-one (429), one (641) or no (165) anti-epileptic drugs when they were pregnant. Those children who had been exposed to more than one anti-epileptic drug in the womb had an increase risk of not receiving a final grade upon completion of their schooling. However, those whose mothers had taken only one kind of anti-epileptic drug showed no decrease in performance.

Anticonvulsants and suicide risk

Certain anticonvulsant drugs could be associated with an increased risk of suicide, attempted suicide or violent death. Anticonvulsants are used to help people with epilepsy but can also be prescribed for bipolar disorder, mania, neuralgia, migraine and neuropathic pain. Researchers from Harvard Medical School analyzed data from 14 states about patients fifteen-years old and over who started taking anticonvulsants between July 2001 and December 2006. They found that the risk of suicidal acts was increased for gabapentin (Neurontin), lamotrigine (Lamictal), oxcarbazapine (Trileptal), tiagabine (Gabitril) and valproate (Depakote).

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/15/broadly-used-seizure-meds-may-increase-suicide-risk/12858.html