Do Psychotropic Medications Cause Seizures?

Bupropion, maprotiline, amoxapine, clomipramine, and clozapine are associated with a dose-dependent lowering of the seizure threshold at clinically relevant doses. These investigators reviewed all available data on seizure incidence from phase II and phase III FDA clinical trials of 20 psychotropic medications between 1985 and 2004; the studies involved almost 76,000 patients.

Placebo recipients had much higher seizure incidence rates than has been reported in the general population (19 times higher in depression studies, 7 times higher in trials for obsessive-compulsive disorder, and 13 times higher in antipsychotic studies). For all antidepressants in depression trials, the incidence of seizures, adjusted for person-years of exposure, was …