The current antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) have many limitations. They act only as a symptomatic treatment (anticonvulsant) and lacking antieplitogenic properties or disease modifying effects, they have a lot of adverse effects and drug drug interactions, In addition, nearly a third of patients with epilepsy have seizures refractory to current medical therapies. Mechanisms of action of the current antiseizure medications focus mainly on regulating neurotransmitters and ion channels. In search for novel targets, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling was found to be involved in major multiple cellular functions, including cell survival, growth, protein synthesis, neurogenesis, synaptic plasticity and other cellular processes related to epileptogenesis. This made mTOR pathway a possible therapeutic target for epilepsy treatment. This review explores the relevance of m-TOR pathway to epileptogenesis and epilepsy as well as presenting the effects of m-TOR inhibitors in some animal models of epilepsy.
Key words: Epilepsy, m-TOR inhibitors, epileptogeneisis, Antiepileptic drugs