• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio

Is lamotrigine good for the brain cause of neuroprotection?

glab

Bluelighter
Joined
May 3, 2015
Messages
182
Too much glutamate damages the brain. Lamotrigine works on glutamate. I don't know if it lowers it or what exactly it does. Anyway, does anyone know if lamotrigine is officially neuroprotective? If it is then why doesn't everybody want to get on it? If glutamate is bad and causes dementia then being on lamotrigine should be a good strategy.
 
could be dangerous. A few people have a severe an highly unpleasant reaction to lamovtrigine, namely stevens-johnson syndrome, where the skin, mucous membranes and sometimes eyes start blistering and the skin sloughing off. I'd not touch this one unless necessary.
 
there is tons of shit that inhibits glutamate why focus on this one specifically
 
Tons of commonly used pharmaceuticals cause stevens johnsons syndrome though, it could bw the case that this is more likely to cause it but many things from NSAIDS to antibiotics can cause stevens johnsons syndrome. It's shittiest lottery you can win though. It sounds absolutely horrid.
 
Yes, but lamotrigine is particularly prone to it afaik, the stuff has a black box warning about it IIRC in the US.
 
Modafinil wasn't approved as an official adhd treatment because of sjs.

Mood stabilizers generally speaking are not glutamatergic.

It's difficult to say because excess of anything is neurotoxic. It depends on specific biochemistry. Also, ischemia causes excessive glutamatergic action, so chicken or egg.

Lithium I've heard of being the most neuroprotective mood stabilizer, but it needs regular bloodwork to monitor for other organ damage.
 
Most of the mood stabilizers primarily work by reducing sodium and calcium, indirectly reducing glutamate, their main method of reducing convulsions.

Asecin, is right. All the mood stabilizing anticonvulsants' goal in the end - most of them - is to inhibit glutamate (or enhance GABA), but with lamotrigine, it actually becomes neurotoxic and induces seizures at high dosages due to its presynaptic sodium mechanism, which acutally inhibits GABA release - similarly to how cannabinoids work presynaptically and also inhibt GABA and can cause seizures.
 
What? Lamotrigine causes seizures?!

I wonder how risky it would be to take modafinil and lamotrigine together.

How big is the SJS risk in modafinil?

This sucks. I'd have liked to try modafinil.

But I am also not sure if lamotrigine might not work against modafinil. Modafinil seems to work through glutamate.
Maybe lamotrigine would ruin the effects.
 
Lamotrigine definitely does not cause seizures. It's commonly prescribed as an anti-seizure medication. I'm prescribed both lamotrigine and modafinil and without issue. The modafinil works exactly as well as it did before starting lamotrigine.
 
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