Abstract

Overcoming refractory epilepsy's resistance to the combination of antiepileptic drugs (AED), mitigating side ef-fects, and preventing sudden unexpected death in epilepsy are critical goals for therapy of this disorder. Current therapeutic strategies are based primarily on neurocentric mechanisms, overlooking the participation of astro-cytes and microglia in the pathophysiology of epilepsy. This review is focused on a set of non-selective membrane channels (permeable to ions and small molecules), including channels and ionotropic receptors of neurons, as-trocytes, and microglia, such as: the hemichannels formed by Cx43 and Panx1; the purinergic P2X7 receptors; the transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV1 and TRPV4) channels; calcium homeostasis modulators (CALHMs); transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC) channels; transient receptor potential melastatin (TRPM) channels; voltage-dependent anion channels (VDACs) and volume-regulated anion channels (VRACs), which all have in common being activated by epileptic activity and the capacity to exacerbate seizure intensity. Specifically, we highlight evidence for the activation of these channels/receptors during epilepsy including neu-roinflammation and oxidative stress, discuss signaling pathways and feedback mechanisms, and propose the functions of each of them in acute and chronic epilepsy. Studying the role of these non-selective membrane chan-nels in epilepsy and identifying appropriate blockers for one or more of them could provide complementary ther-apies to better alleviate the disease. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.