The Roles of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors in Seizures and Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a disorder that afflicts more than 50 million people worldwide. Current antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), although effective in controlling seizures for the majority of individuals, remain far from ideal as therapeutics. There is a need for new drugs that act at different molecular targets than currently available AEDs and for new therapies designed to block the process of epileptogenesis. Because of their central role in modulating numerous physiological processes in the central nervous system, metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) have been implicated in the pathophysiology of a variety of neurological conditions including epilepsy. mGluRs represent attractive new targets for therapeutic control of seizures and interruption of the epileptogenic process. We review the involvement of mGluRs in the induction and expression of epileptic seizures, their potential roles in the process of epileptogenesis, and their altered expression and function in the epileptic human brain.