Blood carnitine and/or acetylcarnitine deficiencies are postulated in the literature as possible causes of higher ammonia levels. The aim of this study was to investigate if the use of valproic acid, the age of the patients, or certain central nervous system pathologies can cause carnitine and/or acetylcarnitine deficiency leading to increased ammonia levels. Three groups of patients were studi...

Direct, small-molecule determination of the antiepileptic drug, valproic acid, was investigated by a label-free, nanomechanical biosensor. Valproic acid has long been used as an antiepileptic medication, which is administered through therapeutic drug monitoring and has a narrow therapeutic dosage range of 50-100 μg·mL-1 in blood or serum. Unlike labeled and clinically-used measurement technique...

In order to compare and contrast the efficacy of haloperidol, carbamazepine, and valproic acid in the treatment of Sydenham's chorea a prospective study including 18 cases of this disorder was undertaken. Age of patients ranged from 7 to 15 years. Ten children were female and 8 were male. All but one had generalized, either symmetric or asymmetric chorea. The patients were divided in three equa...

Objective Antiepileptic drugs (AED) have chronic teratogenic effects, the most common of which are congenital heart disease, cleft lip/palate, urogenital and neural tube defects. The aim of our study is to examine teratogenic effects of AED and the correlation between these malformations and AED in single or multiple pregnancies. Methods This is a retrospective study of malformations in child...

CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, Vol. 36, No. 5, 1990 825 trations of citrate. This effect is similar to, but not as marked as, that reported by Gawoski and Walsh. The total calcium concentration measured with the Synchron CX-5 in a sample with citrate concentration of 6.6 mmol/L was only 0.15 mmoIIL less than that in the plasma pool without added citrate. The level of interference due to citrate in all the...

Introduction: Chemokine receptors are found on the surface of stem cells. There have been 19 distinct chemokine receptors described in mammals. Chemokines are major players in migration and homing. Therefore, changes in their levels or function can help us to increase the migratory potential of these cells. Valproic acid differs in structure from other drugs in common use. The way in which Va...

Humans and various nonhuman primates respond negatively to inequity not in their favor (i.e., inequity aversion), when inequity between two individuals is introduced. Common marmosets, a highly prosocial species, further discriminated between human actors who reciprocated in social exchanges, and those who did not. Conversely, marmoset models of autism, induced via prenatal exposure to valproic...

This study investigated the effect of repetitive cortical spreading depression (CSD) on behaviour and the anatomical and physiological patterns of cellular activation of cortical and subcortical areas in awake, moving rats. Rat behaviours in response to repetitive CSD events evoked by the application of KCl were quantified with electrophysiological recording. Immunohistochemistry was used to qu...

Commonly used conventional antiepileptic drugs for pharmacotherapy in epilepsy are phenytoin, carbamazepine and valproic acid. These drugs have complex pharmacokinetic properties leading to fluctuation in their plasma level at given same therapeutic dose. The present study was done to monitor their plasma levels. A prospective observational study was conducted at National Public Health Laborato...

objectives juvenile myoclonic epilepsy(j.m.e.) needs life-long anti-epileptic drug (aed) treatment. of various drugs tried in this condition, valproate effectively treats all types of seizures seen in j.m.e. among valproate side effects, neural tube defects (ntd) in the offspring, is a deterring factor in its use in childbearing period. to avoid ntd, most authorities advise on switching to aed ...