Memantine has been demonstrated to be safe and effective in the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). While the neurobiological basis for the therapeutic activity of memantine is not fully understood, the drug is not a cholinesterase inhibitor and, therefore, acts differently from current AD therapies. Memantine can interact with a variety of ligand-gated ion channels. However, NMD...

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were developed with the idea of removing from the pharmacological profile of tricyclic antidepressants (TCA) all of the activities which were thought to be responsible for their adverse effects. Thus interactions with the muscarinic cholinergic receptor, the histamine receptor, and the α1 adrenoceptor were avoided. In addition, the ability to inhi...

Behavioral stimulants have widespread potential application in the treatment of affective disorders, disorders of vigilance, and disorders of sleep. Most behavioral stimulants, however, must be used with extreme caution because of undesirable side effects that include stereotypy, anxiolytic effects, and addiction. Adrafinil, developed in France by Louis Lafon Laboratories, is a novel pharmaceut...

During ischemic stroke, a fatal biochemical cascade that results in neuronal hyperexcitability is initiated when neurons at risk are exposed to excessive excitatory amino acids and pathologically high levels of intracellular calcium (Ca2+). Therefore, neuroprotectants including NMDA-antagonists and blockers of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels have been proposed as novel strategies for stroke treatme...

In the next 50 years, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is likely to become one of the world’s largest public health problems, second only to cancer, unless ways of preventing the disease or treating its preclinical stages are found. Prevention requires the early identification of likely sufferers and determination of the risks that predispose them to AD, information that comes only from large-scale and...

Neurotrophic factors such as nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), neurotrophin-3 (NT3), and neurotrophin-4/5 (NT4/5) play an important role in the regulation of nervous system development and adult nervous system plasticity, maintenance of structural integrity, and mediation of defensive responses after CNS injuries. NGF, probably the most widely studied neurotro...

Drug development for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease has challenging difficulties due to the pharmacokinetic impermeability based on blood-brain barrier (BBB) well blurriness of pharmacodynamic targets their unclarified pathogenesis complicated progression mechanisms. Thus, in order produce innovative central nervous system (CNS) agen...

The central nervous system (CNS) encompasses the brain and spinal cord is considered processing center most vital part of human body. barriers are crucial interfaces between CNS periphery. Among all these biological barriers, blood-brain barrier (BBB) strongly impede hurdle for drug transport to brain. It a semi-permeable diffusion against noxious chemicals harmful substances present in blood s...

having conducted fundamental projects, scientists have expressed their hope to develop the use of carbon nanotubes to release drugs. it is important to release drugs in cell without damaging healthy cells of tissues under study. researchers have shown the fact that nanotubes can perform this function perfectly. to this objective, in the present study the interactions between four anti-cancer dr...

stabilities and quantum molecular descriptors of cyclophoshphamide (an anticancer drug)-functionalized (8,0) zigzag and (4,4) armchair carbon nanotubes (cnts) complexes in water were studied using density functional theory (dft) calculations. two attachments namely the sidewall- and tip-attachments are considered for the model constructions. calculations of the total electronic energy (et) and ...