The challenge and promise of anti-epileptic therapy development in animal models

Translating successful target or compound validation studies into clinically effective therapies is a major challenge, with potential for costly clinical trial failures. This is also true for “the epilepsies”, a complex collection of diseases with different causes and symptoms. To date, availability of predictive animal models has led to development of many effective antiseizure therapies that are routinely used in clinical practice, demonstrating that translation has been very successful in the epilepsy field. There still are, however, several important unmet therapeutic needs. Current therapies do not fully control seizures in a third of patients with epilepsy and produce significant side effects; no treatment can prevent development of epilepsy in at-risk patients or cure patients with epilepsy; no specific treatment for epilepsy-associated comorbidities exists. To meet these demands, urgent redesign of current translational approaches is needed.