Therapeutic Opportunities for Food Supplements in Neurodegenerative Disease and Depression

Therapeutic opportunities for caffeine in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Although caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive drug worldwide, its potential beneficial effect for maintenance of proper brain functioning has only recently begun to be adequately appreciated. This has mainly resulted from the convergence of conclusions from epidemiological studies and from fundamental research in animal models. Epidemiological studies first revealed an inverse asso...

New Hopes and Challenges for Treatment of Neurodegenerative Disorders: Great Opportunities for Young Neuroscientists

Neurodegenerative pathways in Parkinson's disease: therapeutic strategies.

Parkinson's disease (PD), considered one of the major neurological disorders, is characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra and by the presence of intraneuronal cytoplasmic inclusions called Lewy bodies. The causes for degeneration of PD neurons remain unclear, however, recent findings contributed to clarify this issue. This review will discus...

Exosomes: Origins and Therapeutic Potential for Neurodegenerative Disease

Exosomes, small lipid bilayer vesicles, are part of the transportable cell secretome that can be taken up by nearby recipient cells or can travel through the bloodstream to cells in distant organs. Selected cellular cytoplasm containing proteins, RNAs, and other macromolecules is packaged into secreted exosomes. This cargo has the potential to affect cellular function in either healthy or patho...

Proteostasis in Huntington's disease: disease mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities.

Many neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by impairment of protein quality control mechanisms in neuronal cells. Ineffective clearance of misfolded proteins by the proteasome, autophagy pathways and exocytosis leads to accumulation of toxic protein oligomers and aggregates in neurons. Toxic protein species affect various cellular functions resulting in the development of a spectrum of d...