Fluorofelbamate

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder, characterized by the predisposition of unpro-voked seizures affecting the neurobiological, psychological, cognitive, economic, and social well-being of the patient. As per the 2019 report by World Health Organization, it affects nearly 80% of the population, which comes from middle to low-income countries. It has been suggested that 70% of such cases can be treated effectively if properly diagnosed. It is one of the most common neuro-logical diseases affecting 50 million people globally. Most of the antiepileptic drugs used in clinical practice are only 60-80% effective in controlling the disease. These drugs suffer from serious draw-backs of non-selectivity and toxicity that limit their clinical usefulness. Hence, there is a need to search for safe, potent, and effective anti-epileptic drugs. One of the emerging strategies to discover and develop selective and non-toxic anticonvulsant molecules focuses on the design of non-nitrogen heterocyclic compounds (NNHC). Drugs such as valproic acid, gabapentin, viagabatrin, fluorofel-bamate, tiagabine, progabide, pregabalin, gamma amino butyric acid (GABA), etc. do not contain a nitrogen heterocyclic ring but are as effective anticonvulsants as conventional heterocyclic nitrogen compounds. This review covers the various classes of NNHC which have been developed in the re-cent past as anticonvulsants along with their chemistry, percentage yield, structure-activity relation-ship and biological activity. The most potent compound in each series has been identified for com-parative studies, for further structural modification and to improve the pharmacokinetic profile. Var-ious optimized synthetic pathways and diverse functionalities other than nitrogen-containing rings discussed in the article may help medicinal chemists to design safe and effective anticonvulsant drugs in near future.