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Ok, you actually had me intrigued- I had never heard of antiepileptics causing cell death. I did a quick search and I think you’re talking about only one paper: Bittigau et al. 2002.
This was the only paper I could find suggesting this and so I read the paper. The group tested barbituates, benzodiazipenes and valoprate. Note that all these drugs are Gaba potentiators (and Valoprate is suspected to have weak gaba potentiators in addition to Na Channel blocking).
The groups looked at P0, 2, 4, and 6 rats, Rat neurones are still developing at this stage and glutmate action is implicated, therefore it is not surprising that Gaba potentiation causes death. You can’t then link this to epilepsy in adults where neurones are developed. This is infact a misnomer.
The group did the study to translate it to the effects on unborn children if a pregnant woman was taking antiepileptics. Bear in mind though, it is VERY rare to find people taking barbituates or Benzdiazpines for bog standard epilepsy.
To answer the second part of your question, if apoptosis was a problem, antioxidants would be unlikely to help. Antioxidants work against reactive oxygen species but in the brain, most apoptosis is mediated by increased calcium levels and is mediated by Calcineurin phophotase and calmodulin- so antioxidants have no effect.
I hope this helps!…Feel free to email me if you think I’m wrong- I would like to understand this better too!