Clinical trialNCT01496612TerminatedPhase 2Interventional

Buspirone Therapy for Localized Epilepsy

SponsorNational Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)Enrollment9Anxiety DisorderDepressionEpilepsyPartial EpilepsySeizures

View the registry record on ClinicalTrials.gov

Summary

The lay summary the sponsor registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Background: Buspirone is a drug that is approved for the treatment of anxiety in adults. Studies suggest that buspirone might act on parts of the brain that can increase certain levels of brain activity. Increasing this brain activity may help decrease epileptic seizures that come from certain parts of the brain. Researchers want to see if buspirone can reduce seizure frequency in people with seizures who are already taking antiseizure medication. Objectives: To test whether buspirone can reduce the frequency of seizures in people whose seizures seem to start from one part of the brain. Eligibility: Individuals between 18 and 65 years of age who have seizures coming from one or more places in the brain. Participants must have tried at least two different antiseizure medications. Participants must also have had at least three seizures during a 1-month observation period while on current medicines. Design: Participants will have a screening visit with a physical exam and medical history. Participants will complete mood and memory testing scales. Blood, urine, and saliva samples will be collected. Participants will have a magnetic resonance imaging scan to evaluate brain structures that relate to epilepsy. They will also have a positron emission tomography scan to look at parts of the brain that are affected by buspirone. Participants will start taking a study drug (either buspirone or placebo) twice daily. They will keep a calendar of seizures and record any side effects. Treatment will be monitored with clinic visits and blood samples. After 12 weeks on the study drug, participants will gradually stop taking either the placebo or buspirone over two weeks. They will stay off the drug for another 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, participants will start taking a study drug that is the opposite of the one they had before. They will keep a calendar of seizures and record any side effects. Treatment will be monitored with clinic visits and blood samples. After 12 weeks on the study drug, participants will gradually stop taking either the placebo or buspirone. Participants will have a final followup visit with additional blood tests, mood and memory testing scales and imaging studies.

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Investigators

The overall officials registered on this study. Names that resolve to a FindMyKOL profile link to it; the rest are shown as registered.

William H Theodore, M.D.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Principal Investigator
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A profile link is shown only when the registered name resolves to a person record with a confident, namesake-checked match; ambiguous names stay unlinked.

Sites

1 registered facility, with the per-site recruitment status where the registry publishes one. ClinicalTrials.gov does not publish per-site enrollment counts.

United States

National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, 9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland, United States

Site investigator names are published by ClinicalTrials.gov only while a study recruits, so completed studies list sites without them.

Drugs studied

The drug and biological interventions registered on this study, normalized to their RxNorm ingredient where possible.

Buspirone →Placebo

Linked drugs open the directory filtered to KOLs working with them.clinicaltrials.gov ↗

Registration & key dates

Registry attributes as recorded on the ClinicalTrials.gov study record.

Start: 22 Nov 2011
Primary completion: 19 Apr 2016
Completion: 19 Apr 2016
Last update posted: 5 Oct 2021
Registered enrollment: 9
Registry id: NCT01496612

clinicaltrials.gov ↗

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov, via the CTTI AACT database, data as of 11 Nov 2026. Registry facts are shown as registered by the study sponsor; FindMyKOL does not interpret them.