Lacosamide - sold under the brand name Vimpat and others - was discovered at the University of Houston in 1996. It was licenced in Europe and the US in 2008 for the treatment of partial-onset seizures in Epilepsyplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigEpilepsy
"Epilepsy is a chronic noncommunicable disease of the brain that affects around 50 million people worldwide. It is characterized by recurrent seizures, which are brief episodes of involuntary movement that may involve a part of the body (partial) or the entire body (generalized) and are sometimes accompanied by loss of consciousness and control of bowel or bladder function. Seizure episodes are a result of excessive electrical discharges in a group of brain cells. Different parts of ….
Its precise mechanism of action was unknown at the time of approval, and the exact amino acid targets involved remain uncertain to this day."
Source Wikipedia
The drug has also been used (with varying degrees of success) to treat : bipolar disorder, cocaine addiction, dementia, depression, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, fibromyalgia, headache, hiccups, Huntington's disease, mania, migraine, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, restless leg syndrome, and tinnitus.
In no case has the drug's mechanism of action been fully explained.