Novel Approaches to the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

ISBN-13: 9781468457292 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 386 str.

E. Meyer

Opis

Alzheimer's disease afflicts up to 1 in 5 people over the age of 65 years and causes untold suffering of the patient and their family. The cause of this disease is unknown; indeed, evidence increasingly suggests that there may be multiple Alzheimer-type syndromes with different etiologies, analogous to different types of psychosis. Currently there are no means to prevent the disease, slow its progress or reverse its neurodegenerative consequences. With few exceptions, clinical trials of a variety of compounds have resulted in patient responses that are disappointing with respect to both the proportion of responders and the magnitude of the responses. Novel approaches to the treatment of Alzheimer's disease are clearly warranted. For this reason, we organized the First Suncoast Workshop on the Neurobiology of Aging in St. Petersburg, Florida, which took place from February 26-March 1, 1989. This workshop focused on novel treatments and models for Alzheimer's disease and represented a cooperative venture among academia, government and industry, both in its participants and sponsorship. The Center for the Neurobiology of Aging at the University of Florida, the National Institute on Aging and Taiho Pharmaceutical Corporation in Japan sponsored the workshop in which scientists from the North America, Europe, Japan and other parts of Asia participated.

Spis treści

Section I. Drugs that Act at Cholinergic Receptors.- A Functionalized Congener Approach to Muscarinic Ligands.- AF102B: A Novel M1 Agonist as a Rational Treatment Strategy in Alzheimer’s Disease.- Muscarinic Receptors, Phosphoinositide Hydrolysis and Neuronal Plasticity in the Hippocampus.- Effects of Cholinergic Drugs on Extracellular Levels of Acetylcholine and Choline in Rat Cortex, Hippocampus and Striatum Studied byu Brain Dialysis.- Delayed Matching-to-Sample in Monkeys as a Model for Learning and Memory Deficits: Role of Brain Nicotinic Receptors.- Muscarinic and Nicotinic Receptors in Alzheimer’s Disease: Rationale for Cholinergic Drug Treatment.- Section II. CNS-Active Neurotrophic Factors.- Potential Pharmacological Use of Neurotrophic Factors in the Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases.- The Use of Reaggregating Cell Cultures and Immortalized Central Nervous System Cells to Study Cholinergic Trophic Mechanisms.- Approaches to Gene Therapy in the CNS: Intracerebral Grafting of Fibroblasts Genetically Modified to Secrete Nerve Growth Factor.- Exogenous Nerve Growth Factor Stimulates Choline Acetyltransferase Activity in Basal Forebrain of Axotomized and Aged Rats.- Neuronotrophic Factors, Gangliosides and Their Interaction: Implications in the Regulation of Nervous System Plasticity.- Suppression of Active Neuronal Death by Immune Interferon.- Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor, an Example of a Multifunctional Trophic Factor with Neurotrophic Activity.- Growth Factor and Lymphokine Effects on Brain Cholinergic Systems.- Metabolic Support of Neural Plasticity: Implications for the Treatment of Alzheimers Disease.- Section III. Additional Novel Treatment Strategies: Improved Brain Delivery, Hormones, and Immunology.- Brain-Enhanced Delivery of Anti-Dementia Drugs.- Development of a Pyrrolidinone Derivative (Cyclic GABA)for Modulating Brain Glutamate Transmission.- A Brain-Enhanced Chemical Delivery System for Gonadal Steroids: Implications for Neurodegenerative Diseases.- Immunologic Approach to Therapy in Alzheimer’s Disease.- The Influence of ACTH 4–9 Analog upon Avoidance Learning in Normal and Brain Damaged Rats.- Section IV. Models for Drug-Development: Cholinergic Hypofunction.- Transneuronal Neurochemical and Neuropathological Changes Induced by Nucleus Basalis Lesions: A Possible Degenerative Mechanism in Alzheimer’s Disease.- Presynaptic Markers of Cholinergic Function in Cortex Following Ibotenic Acid Lesion of the Basal Forebrain.- Cholinergic-Neuropeptide Y Interactions in the Rat Cerebralcortex: Towards a Model for the Trans-synapticEffects of Cholinergic Transmission.- The Effects of Nucleus Basalis Lesions in the Rat on One Way Passive and Active Avoidance, Two Way Avoidance and Lashly III Maze Learning: An Animal Model for SDAT.- Section V. Models for Drug Development: Other Neurochemical and Behavioral Changes.- NMDA Receptors, Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease.- An Excitotoxic Model of Alzheimer’s Disease: NMDA Lesions and Initial Neural Grafting Results.- Excitotoxin Mediated Neuronal Loss and the Regulation of Excitatory Amino Acid Release in the Aging Brain.- EEG Power Spectra and Brain Function.- Postmortem Stability of RNA Metabolism in Human Brain: Studies of the Nondemented Conrol and Alzheimer’s Disease Cases.- A Model System Demonstrating Parallels in Animal and Human Aging: Extension to Alzheimer’s Disease.- Computer-Simulated Everyday Memory Testing for Clinical Trials in Memory Disorders of Aging.