Metabolic aspects of epilepsy: prospects for metabolome research

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases. Despite the availability of modern antiepileptic drugs, up to 30 % of patients fail to achieve control over seizures and develop pharmacoresistancy, which leads to decrease in quality of life, social and professional limitations as well as their stigmatization in society. Epilepsy is closely connected with malfunction of one of the most metabolically active systems of our body – the central nervous system and seizures can be the cause of this metabolic failure as well as its consequence. Metabolomics is a new, rapidly developing scientific area and a promising tool for postgenomic research by studying biological fluids. The study of metabolome is the analysis of the combination of low molecular weight substances (metabolites) of an organism or biological sample, including various substances such as aminoacids, organic acids, sugars, steroids, nucleotides and lipids. This review summarizes the results of studies concerning the role of metabolic disorders in epileptogenesis. The analysis of scientific publications devoted to the assessment of the metabolic profile in epilepsy, the study of its features depending on the phenotype of the disease, and the response to therapy. Probably, further studies of metabolism will allow us to identify new biomarkers that can be used in the process of diagnostic search, in determining the prognosis of the disease and personification of therapy.