Gabapentin belongs to a class of medications known as anti-epileptic medications, though it is used to treat a variety of illnesses. You may have been given it to treat partial seizures, which are a kind of epilepsy. A seizure is a brief bout of symptoms triggered by an aberrant burst of electrical activity in the brain. Gabapentin is used to treat seizure symptoms and works by lowering aberrant electrical activity in the brain. It is not entirely clear how it accomplishes this.