April 19, 2024

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ADHD drug may help improve symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease

ADHD drug may help improve symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease



 

ADHD drug may help improve symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Repurposing some of the drugs currently used to treat ADHD and depression can provide small improvements in cognitive symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a new systematic review finds.

It is reported that the research focuses on a series of drugs developed to stimulate the brain’s norepinephrine system.

 

ADHD drug may help improve symptoms of Alzheimer's disease

 

 

Drugs of the northern adrenergic system have been used to treat a variety of conditions, from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression to insomnia and high blood pressure.

 

They work by targeting a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine, which plays a role in some cognitive processes, including arousal, attention, and memory.

 

Over the years, back in the 1980s, a number of small clinical trials investigated the effects of norepinephrine drugs on Alzheimer’s disease.

However, these results have generally never been convincing enough to proceed in earnest, and other areas of research have become more popular targets.

 

 

Recently, several studies have rekindled interest in the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and the brain’s norepinephrine system.

From discovering that the earliest stages of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease may occur in the brain region responsible for the production of norepinephrine, the locator (LC), to showing that apathy is an early symptom of the disease, a British research team was inspired to, They reviewed past investigations into the effects of norepinephrine drugs on disease.

 

The review pooled data from 19 previously published studies, including 1811 patients. A number of different noradrenergic drugs were studied in the review, including modafinil, mirtazapine, and niclosamide.

 

The results showed a small but significant improvement in cognition and a larger improvement in apathy with the use of these drugs.

The researchers are careful to point out the limitations of pooling data from different trials over several decades, but they have concluded that there are good reasons for new clinical trials to investigate whether these drugs could be used as treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

 

“In patients with dementia or MCI (mild cognitive impairment) due to Alzheimer’s disease, drug therapy targeting the norepinephrine system can improve cognition and apathy,” the review concluded. did not have any beneficial effects on force or explicit memory. Based on this meta-analysis, and recognizing the importance of the LC-NA system in a variety of neurodegenerative further clinical trials of noradrenergic drugs.”

 

Experts unrelated to the new review called the findings promising. David Smith of the University of Oxford noted that the analysis was important and well done, but stressed that the drugs may have only slightly improved the patient’s symptoms and did not appear to affect the progression of the disease.

 

“There is no evidence that these drugs affected disease progression, but they did improve some symptoms, particularly apathy.

A small, possibly not clinically meaningful improvement in cognition was also found. The report should stimulate further trials. , especially in combination with other symptomatic treatments,” Smith said.

 

Sian Gregory of the Alzheimer’s Association points out that there is a lack of available treatments for Alzheimer’s patients right now, and even a drug that slightly relieves a patient’s symptoms could be of value.

Gregory called for further clinical trials to explore the potential of norrenergic drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

 

“This promising new study may help improve the lives of Alzheimer’s patients in the future and help reduce the effects of common symptoms such as memory and thinking problems, as well as improve apathy,” Gregory said. The drug, the messenger norepinephrine, is already commonly used to treat conditions such as ADHD and depression, and clinical trials evaluating its benefit in Alzheimer’s patients should be straightforward.”

 

 

 

ADHD drug may help improve symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease

(source:internet, reference only)


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