page_title: Anticonvulsant
section_title: Carboxamides
hierarchical_section_title: Anticonvulsant / Drugs / Carboxamides
caption_attribution_description: Space-filling model of carbamazepine. Created using ACD/ChemSketch 10.0, Accelrys DS Visualizer Pro 1.6 and GIMP.
context_page_description: Anticonvulsants are a diverse group of pharmacological agents used in the treatment of epileptic seizures. Anticonvulsants are also increasingly being used in the treatment of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, since many seem to act as mood stabilizers, and for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Anticonvulsants suppress the excessive rapid firing of neurons during seizures. Anticonvulsants also prevent the spread of the seizure within the brain.
  Conventional antiepileptic drugs may block sodium channels or enhance γ-aminobutyric acid function. Several antiepileptic drugs have multiple or uncertain mechanisms of action. Next to the voltage-gated sodium channels and components of the GABA system, their targets include GABAA receptors, the GAT-1 GABA transporter, and GABA transaminase. Additional targets include voltage-gated calcium channels, SV2A, and α2δ. By blocking sodium or calcium channels, antiepileptic drugs reduce the release of excitatory glutamate, whose release is considered to be elevated in epilepsy, but also that of GABA.
context_section_description: The following are carboxamides:
  Carbamazepine (1963). A popular anticonvulsant that is available in generic formulations.
  Oxcarbazepine (1990). A derivative of carbamazepine that has similar efficacy but is better tolerated and is also available generically.
  Eslicarbazepine acetate (2009)
caption: Carbamazepine
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