Antiepileptic Effects of Allopurinol Involved in Hippocampal Specific SOD (Superoxide Dismutase) Induction in the Mutant El Mouse.

Recently the xanthine oxidase inhibitor, allopurinol, has been clinically demonstrated to exert antiepileptic effects: particularly on secondarily generalized seizures.’ The El mouse is an epileptic mutant model of secondarily generalized seizure.6 Several lines of evidence indicate that in the El, the parietal cortex plays an important role in seizure initiation and the hippocampus plays a role in the generalization of se iz~res .~ And the developmental formation of the “Focus Complex” which is mainly constituted from the parietal cortex and hippocampus should be deeply involved in the epileptogene~is.~ Antiepileptic effects of allopurinol were determined in the El. Furthermore, the mode of action of allopurinol was investigated by measuring the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) according to the time course after the administration of allopurinol.