Potassium bromide, an anticonvulsant, is effective at alleviating seizures in the Drosophila bang-sensitive mutant...

Human seizure disorders are a major health concern due to the large number of affected individuals, the potentially devastating consequences of untreated seizure occurrences, and the lack of an effective treatment for all patients. Although anticonvulsants have proven very helpful in treating seizures and remain the best option available for treatment, not all afflicted individuals respond to medication and many only do so in unique drug combinations or at the cost of adverse side-effects. Therefore, new and more effective anticonvulsants are continually sought after to combat this illness. In this study, we present results which offer the possibility of using Drosophila bang-sensitive (BS) mutants as a tool to screen anticonvulsants. By feeding the BS mutants a known anticonvulsant, potassium bromide, we have demonstrated that the drug dramatically reduces the seizures of bang senseless, the most severe of the BS mutants. This methodology suggests that the Drosophila system can potentially be a powerful instrument for assaying and testing new compounds with anticonvulsant properties.