Indeed studies have suggested that Antiepileptic drugs, such as lamotrigine presents targets of action in the synapse, which could be relevant in epilepsy and other disorders. The mechanisms of action including, modulating ion channels and receptors and intracellular signaling pathways (Johannessen, 2008 and Mazza et al., 2007). Interestingly, evidence suggests that a variety of intracellular pathways and signal transduction cascades are involved in both the pathophysiology and treatment of depression (Coyle and Duman, 2003, Duman, BYL719 solubility dmso 1998, Duman et al., 1997 and Vaidya et al., 2007). Many antidepressant drugs acutely increase monoamine levels, but the

requirement for chronic treatment has led to the hypothesis that long-term adaptations are necessary for the therapeutic actions of these treatments (Duman et al., 1994). Among the many long term targets of antidepressant treatments

may be the regulation of neurotrophins, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF). Our results showed that the acute and chronic treatments with lamotrigine increased the BDNF levels in the prefrontal cortex. Consistent with this result, Perifosine Li et al. (2010) showed that the chronic treatment with lamotrigine (30 mg/kg) increased BDNF protein expression in the prefrontal cortex, but contrarily to our result the BDNF protein expression was also increased in the hippocampus. We cannot explain why such discrepancies occur, but they may be related to the dosage used. In addition, a study by our group showed that acute

administration of ketamine at the higher dose 15 mg/kg, but not in lower doses, increased BDNF protein levels in the rat hippocampus. Our results also showed that chronic, but not acute; treatment with lamotrigine increased the NGF levels in the prefrontal cortex. Another result showed that in rats, treatment with lithium at various dosages increased NGF in the hippocampus, amygdala, frontal cortex, and limbic forebrain, whereas NGF in the striatum, midbrain, and hypothalamus was unchanged (Hellweg et al., 2002). Our results showed that imipramine did not alter de BDNF and NGF levels, suggesting isothipendyl that the antidepressant effects of lamotrigine may be related, at least in part, by its action on the neurotrophins, which was not observed with the classic antidepressant. It is important that others studies have been shown effects of imipramine on the BDNF. In fact, chronic treatment with imipramine increased BDNF mRNA levels in the dentate gyrus of the dorsal hippocampus (Larsen et al., 2010). Réus et al. (2011) also pointed to increase on the BDNF levels with imipramine in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala by imunoblot, its effects were more pronounced when co-administrated with ketamine, an antagonist of NMDA receptor. In contrast, others no have been shown effects of imipramine on the BDNF levels in the hippocampus (Garcia et al.