An anti-seizure medication markedly improves learning, memory and other cognitive functions in Alzheimer’s patients who have epileptic activity in their brains, a clinical trial has revealed.
Through the use of levetiracetam, given in 125mg twice a day – far less than a typical dose used for epilepsy – researchers found that the medication improved cognitive function better than current treatments alone.
“There’s a subtype of Alzheimer’s disease, consider it an epileptic variant, that’s quite common, occurring in approximately 60 per cent of patients,” says Dr Keith Vossel, director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UCLA, and the principal investigator on the clinical trial.
“Patients with this form of Alzheimer’s disease show symptomatic improvement with levetiracetam.
“This study was intended to look for cognitive improvement during a short course of treatment. There are other studies that are ongoing to see if the drug can help slow the disease course over longer periods.”
Among Alzheimer’s patients, an estimated 10 to 22 per cent develop seizures, while an additional 22 to 54 per cent exhibit silent epileptic activity.
Dr Vossel, who began the study in 2014, showed in earlier studies that patients who experience silent epileptic activity in their brains have a more rapid decline in cognitive function.
The researchers chose to test the anti-seizure medication levetiracetam, which was approved by the FDA in 1999 and had also performed well in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease.
In the study, 34 patients with mild Alzheimer’s symptoms were screened for silent epileptic activity using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to monitor them overnight, as well as an hour-long magnetoencephalogram (MEG) to record magnetic waves generated from electrical activity.
These patients were then divided into two groups with one group receiving placebo for four weeks, followed by a four-week period of receiving no drug and then a 125mg dose of levetiracetam twice a day for four weeks. The second group received these same treatments in reverse order.
During the study period, the researchers tested skills like the patients’ abilities to problem solve, reason, remember words and how well they could navigate.
The study team found that the patients treated with levetiracetam showed trends toward improvement in cognitive function, but when the patients were separated into those with silent epileptic activity and those without, the patients with silent epileptic activity showed clear benefit from being on the drug.
Patients in the study were already taking currently approved medications for Alzheimer’s, and researchers said this study demonstrates that levetiracetam improves cognitive function better than current treatments alone. Future studies will be needed to find out whether taking the drug long-term can slow disease progression.
