Effects of estrogens on seizures and neurotoxicity

Estrogens have proepileptic properties both in humans and experimental animals. On the other hand, estrogens attenuate neuronal damage due to a variety of insults including hypoglycemia, oxidative agents, hypoxia and glutamate receptor agonists. Since excitatory amino acids play a key role both in seizures and neurotoxicity, their involvement in the mechanism of proepileptic and neuroprotective effects of estrogens deserves special attention. In this short paper, some facts and hypotheses on genomic and nongenomic actions of estrogens on glutamate receptor-dependent seizures and neurotoxicity will be presented.