Quantitative structure–activity relationship models for compounds with anticonvulsant activity

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Third-generation antiepileptic drugs have seemingly failed to improve the global figures of seizure control and can still be regarded as symptomatic treatments. Quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSAR) can be used to guide hit-to-lead and lead optimization projects and applied to the large-scale virtual screening of chemical libraries.Areas covered: In this review, the authors cover reports on QSAR models related to antiepileptic drugs and drug targets in epilepsy, analyzing whether they refer to classic or non-classic QSAR and if they apply QSAR as a descriptive or predictive approach, among other considerations. The article finally focuses on a more detailed discussion of those predictive studies which include some sort of experimental validation, i.e. papers in which the reported models have been used to identify novel active compounds which have been tested in vitro and/or in vivo.Expert opinion: There are significant opportunities to apply the QSAR methodology to ass...