of isatin derivatives

Epilepsy is a disease of complex nature and of different etiology (1). A large number of populations of different age groups and sex are affected by this disease. Mainly, two kinds of epilepsy have been identified, one with grand mal and the other with petit mal. Anticonvulsant drugs with MES (maximal electroshock) activity are generally useful in grand mal, while ScMet (subcutaneous metrazole) antagonists are effective in petit mal. Many drugs have been marketed recently for the treatment of epilepsy (2–4). These in-clude milecemide, zonisamide, lamotrigine, felbamate and tiagabine. Recently, semicar-bazones are emerging as novel anticonvulsant drugs. 4-Bromobenzaldeyde semicarba-zone and 4-bromophenyl semicarbazones have shown promising activities (5–9). The proposed pharmacophoric requirements in the semicarbazone molecules are: (i) aryl binding site with a hydrophobic group; (ii) hydrogen bonding domain exemplified by the presence of the-NHCO- grouping; (iii) two electron donor system; (iv) hydrophobic binding site whose size determines the type of activity