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Valproic Acid

List of authors.
  • Thomas R. Browne, M.D.

Valproic acid (VPA) is an antiepileptic drug approved in 1978 by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of absence seizures. VPA is a simple eight-carbon branched-chain fatty acid, which is structurally unrelated to any other marketed drug (Fig. 1). In the United States, tablets are marketed as VPA, and syrup is marketed as the sodium salt of VPA (sodium valproate). Tablets of the sodium and magnesium salts of VPA and an amide form of VPA are marketed in some foreign countries.Mechanism of ActionVPA suppresses seizure activity in many animal models of epilepsy and . . .

Funding and Disclosures

Supported in part by the Veterans Administration.

I am indebted to Robert G. Feldman, M.D., and Karen C. Olson, R. EEG T., who assisted in the preparation of this article.

Author Affiliations

From the departments of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, and Children's Hospital Medical Center (address reprint requests to the Department of Neurology, Veterans Administration Medical Center, 150 S. Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02130).

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