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Low cerebrospinal fluid -aminobutyric acid content in seizure patients

Surgical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (Dr. Wood), and the Biological Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health (Drs. Ballenger and Post), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and the Department of Pharmacology, Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA (Drs. Hare and Glaeser).

-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) has been implicated in the neurochemistry of epilepsy. Lumbar cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) GABA concentrations determined using an ion-exchange fluorometric assay reflect brain GABA content. The mean lumbar CSF GABA concentration among 21 medicated patients with intractable seizures was significantly lower (p < 0.001) than that of 20 urimedicated normal volunteers. Patients with generalized tonic-clonk (grand mal) and complex partial (psychomotor) seizures had significantly lower (p < 0.05) CSF GABA concentrations than those with simple partial (focal sensory/motor) seizures. Although lumbar CSF GABA levels in our seizure patients did not significantly correlate with serum concentrations of phenytoin, phenobarbital, or primidone, additional study of medication-free epileptic patients may be required to evaluate the possibility of anticonvulsant-drug-induced CSF GABA alterations.

Reprint requests should be sent to Dr. Wood, Division of Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Silverstein Pavilion 5, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

This paper was presented at the thirty-first annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Chicago, April 1979.

Accepted for publication March 29, 1979.

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