About this Research Topic
The reasons why there are so many successful strategies in phase 1 are not obvious. We think that is essential to open a debate to identify which common mechanisms of cognitive enhancement and neuroprotection are brought by different approaches.
To our knowledge, no similar strategy has been taken before. Thus, a specific Research Topic in Frontiers in Pharmacology may allow significant advances in dissecting out which are the overlapping mechanisms engaged by different drugs and/or approaches for treating AD. This would provide useful information to turn around the current negative output in generating effective drugs. Furthermore, a clear distinction between cognitive enhancers, neuroprotective and disease modifying strategies should be instrumental for the advance in the drug discovery to combat AD.
Putative contents:
Canonical approaches:
- The anti-amyloid approach (heavily explored even in clinical trials and with a very little –if any- success)
- The anti-tau approach
Atypical approaches:
- The insulin-diabetes link
- Antioxidants and phospholipids
- Dual cholinergic and serotonergic drugs
- Cognitive training
- G-protein-coupled receptors
- Antihypertensives
- Cholesterol
- Histone deacetylase inhibitors
- Phosphodiesterases
Conclusion articles:
- Cognitive enhancement versus neuroprotective and disease modifying strategies
- The cAMP/GPCR path
- The cAMP/cGMP/phosphodiesterase path
- The metabolic syndrome path
- The epigenetics path
General Conclusions article
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