Pharmacological approaches for Alzheimer’s disease: neurotransmitter as drug targets

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common CNS disorder occurring worldwide. There is neither proven effective prevention for AD nor a cure for patients with this disorder. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop safer and more efficacious drugs to help combat the tremendous increase in disease progression. The present review is an attempt at discussing the treatment strategies and drugs under clinical trials governing the modulation of neurotransmitter. Therefore, looking at neurotransmitter abnormalities, there is an urge for developing the pharmacological approaches aimed at correcting those abnormalities and dysfunctioning. In addition, this review also discusses the drugs that are in Phase III trials for the treatment of AD. Despite advances in treatment strategies aimed at correcting neurotransmitter abnormalities, there exists a need for the development of drug therapies focusing on the attempts to remove the pathogenomic protein deposits, thus combating the disease progression.

Quantitative profiling of neurotransmitter abnormalities in brain, cerebrospinal fluid, and serum of experimental diabetic encephalopathy male rat

“…While neurotransmitters are biologically active molecules that play fundamental roles in maintaining brain physiological function, their metabolic alterations have been reported to be closely related to many neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease (AD) (Fedotova et al, ), Huntington disease (HD) (Garcia‐Miralles et al, ), Parkinson disease (PD) (Politis et al, ), and of course DE (Zhou et al, ). There is growing evidence that explains the implication of the neurotransmitter system in the early pathophysiology of cognitive impairment (Prakash, Kalra, Mani, Ramasamy, & Majeed, ; Zhou et al, ), and degenerative encephalopathy has also been diagnosed by several neurotransmitter systems (Levenga et al, ). Moreover, monoamine neurotransmitters, especially tryptophan (Trp) and its metabolites, have recently been spotted for their important regulatory effect on attention, memory, and reaction ability (Vermeiren, Van Dam, Aerts, Engelborghs, & De Deyn, ).…”

Schisandrin ameliorates cognitive impairment and attenuates Aβ deposition in APP/PS1 transgenic mice: involvement of adjusting neurotransmitters and their metabolite changes in the brain

“…There are various reports about the etiology of AD, and some of them involve neurotransmitters (NTs) [8][9][10] . NTs and their metabolites in the central nervous system (CNS) are known to play a significant role in transmitting signals, and the disordered alteration of NTs is a pathological characteristic of AD.…”

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“…Thus, qualitative-quantitative imbalance of gliotransmitter is one of the key pathophysiological mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative processes. [9,10] The use of targeted gene therapy is one of the innovative therapeutic areas, [11][12][13] which can be aimed at modification of the activity of glial cells. The methods used in gene therapy can also be used to study the processes occurring in the brain, in vivo.…”