Epilepsy-Induced High Affinity Blockade of the Cardiac Sodium Current INa by Lamotrigine; A Potential for Acquired Arrythmias

Lamotrigine is widely prescribed to treat bipolar neurological disorder and epilepsy. It exerts its antiepileptic action by blocking voltage-gated sodium channels in neurons. Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning on the use of Lamotrigine after observations of conduction anomalies and Brugada syndrome patterns on the electrocardiograms of epileptic patients treated with the drug. Brugada syndrome and conduction disturbance are both associated with alterations of the cardiac sodium current (INa) kinetics and amplitude. In this study, we used the patch clamp technique on cardiomyocytes from epileptic rats to test the hypothesis that Lamotrigine also blocks INa in the heart. We found that Lamotrigine inhibited 60% of INa peak amplitude and reduced cardiac excitability in epileptic rats but had little effect in sham animals. Moreover, Lamotrigine inhibited 67% of INaL and, more importantly, prolonged the action potential refractory period in epileptic animals. Our results suggest that enhanced affinity of Lamotrigine for INa may in part explain the clinical phenotypes observed in epileptic patients

Spectroscopic and mechanical studies on the Fe-based amorphous alloy 2605SA1

The Vickers micro-hardness of this alloy was unusually dependent on the heat treatment from 300 to 634K, inferring important micro-structural changes and the presence of amorphous grains before its phase transition. Once the alloy is crystallized, the micro-hardness is characteristic of a brittle alloy, the main problem of these alloys. Within the amorphous state, other properties like free-volume, magnetic states and Fe-Fe distances were followed by PALS and MS, respectively, to analyze those micro-structural changes, thermally induced, which are of paramount interest to understand their brittleness problem