Current Alzheimer research
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Recent advances in our understanding of the neurobiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) have led to the development of putative disease-modifying treatments. The most revolutionary of these approaches consists in the removal of brain β-amyloid (Aβ) via anti-Aβ antibodies. Brain imaging and neuropathological studies have shown the ability of both active and passive anti-Aβ immunotherapies of clearing Aβ deposits from the brain of the AD patients. ⋯ However, the preliminary cognitive efficacy of bapineuzumab appears uncertain. The occurrence of vasogenic edema, especially in apolipoprotein E 4 carriers, may limit its clinical use and have led to abandon the highest dose of the drug (2 mg/kg). The results of four ongoing large Phase III trials on bapineuzumab will tell us if passive anti-Aβ immunization is able to alter the course if this devastating disease.
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Ampakines are a class of putative nootropic drug designed to positively modulate the AMPA receptor and have been investigated as a potential treatment for cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease. Nonetheless, some ampakines such as CX717 have been incompletely characterized in behavioural pharmacological studies. Therefore, in this study, we attempted to further characterize the effects of the ampakine, CX717 (20 mg/kg s.c), on the performance of rats in a 5 choice serial reaction time (5CSRTT) and object recognition memory task, using rats with cognitive deficits caused by bilateral vestibular deafferentation (BVD) as a model. ⋯ In the object recognition memory task, CX717 significantly reduced total exploration time and the exploration towards the novel object in both sham and BVD animals. These results suggest that CX717 can reduce the number of incorrect responses in both sham and BVD rats and enhance inhibitory control specifically in BVD rats, in the 5CSRTT. On the other hand, CX717 produced a detrimental effect in the object recognition memory task.