The anticonvulsants are a diverse group of pharmaceuticals used in the treatment of epileptic seizures. Anticonvulsants are also increasingly being used in the treatment of bipolar disorder, since many seem to act as mood stabilizers. The goal of an anticonvulsant is to suppress the rapid and excessive firing of neurons that start a seizure. Failing this, an effective anticonvulsant would prevent the spread of the seizure within the brain and offer protection against possible excitotoxic effects that may result in brain damage. Some studies have site that anticonvulsants themselves are linked to lowered IQ in children.[1] However these studies may be moot given the significant risk epileptiform seizures pose to children and the distinct possibility of death and devastating neurological sequela secondary to seizures. Anticonvulsants are more accurately called antiepileptic drugs (abbreviated "AEDs"), sometimes referred to as antiseizure drugs. While an anticonvulsant is a fair description of AEDs, it neglects to differentiate the difference between convulsions and epilepsy. Convulsive non-epileptic seizures are quite common and these types of seizures will not have any response to an antiepileptic drug. In epilepsy an area of the cortex is typically hyperirritable that can often be confirmed by completing an EEG. Antiepileptic drugs function to help reduce this area of irritability and thus prevent epileptiform seizures.

The major molecular targets of marketed anticonvulsant drugs are voltage-gated sodium channels and components of the GABA system, including GABAA receptors, the GAT-1 GABA transporter, and GABA transaminase.[2] Additional targets include voltage-gated calcium channels, SV2A.

Some anticonvulsants have shown antiepileptogenic effects in animal models of epilepsy. That is, they either prevent the expected development of epilepsy or can halt or reverse the progression of epilepsy. However, no drug has been shown to prevent epileptogenesis (the development of epilepsy after an injury such as a head injury) in human trials.[5]