Carbohydrate-based drugs in the treatment of epilepsy, depression and other affective disorders

Mental illness affects a quarter of the US population. Recently, it has been shown that new, carbohydrate-based drugs hold promise in the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders. A variety of ways in which drugs of this sort may reduce the symptoms of epilepsy, depression and other affective disorders have been proposed, including: targeting the immune system, disrupting glycolysis, acting at different sites in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and targeting specific biochemical pathways such as the inositol pathway. In the present review, the structure-activity relationships (SARs) of a wide variety of CNS-active carbohydrates are presented.