Current Drug Targets-CNS & Neurological Disorders - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2005

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease and neurodegenerative conditions such as stroke and traumatic brain injury are leading causes of death in the Western world. Although displaying a diverse range of clinical symptoms, these neuropathologies have a commonality: the abnormal loss of neurons. While current treatments can reduce the symptoms associated wi Read More

Neurological diseases disrupt the quality of the lives of patients and often leads to their premature deaths. A common feature of most neurological diseases is the degeneration of neurons. It is generally accepted that neuronal loss, in these diseases, occurs by the inappropriate activation of a cell-suicide process called apoptosis. Drugs that inhibit neuronal apoptosis could thus be candidates for therapeutic intervention in neuro Read More

The Bcl-2 family of proteins contains both anti and pro-apoptotic members that have been shown to regulate neuronal cell death during development and in many models of acute and chronic neurodegeneration. This family of proteins can be divided into three distinct classes based on structure and function: the antiapoptotic sub-group; the pro-apoptotic, multi-domain sub-group; and the pro-apoptotic, BH3 domain- Read More

Acetylation and deacetylation of histone protein plays a critical role in regulating gene expression in a host of biological processes including cellular proliferation, development, and differentiation. Accordingly, aberrant acetylation and deacetylation resulting from the misregulation of histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and / or histone deacetylases (HDACs) has been linked to clinical disorders such as Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, Read More

Cerebral ischemia is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the Western world. Despite extensive research, adequate therapies are still elusive. Neuronal degeneration and death are hallmarks of stroke / ischemia. Understanding how the death machinery executes neuronal death in ischemia will provide therapeutic targets. Key to the death machinery are caspases: the family of cell death proteases. While much da Read More

The c-Jun NH2-terminal Kinase (JNK) signaling pathway is frequently induced by cellular stress and correlated with neuronal death. This unique property makes JNK signaling a promising target for developing pharmacological intervention. Among several neurological disorders, JNK signaling is particularly implicated in ischemic stroke and Parkinson's disease. The inhibitors of the JNK signaling pathway include upstream kinase Read More

Oxidative stress, bioenergetic impairment and mitochondrial failure have all been implicated in the etiology of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD), as well as retinal degeneration in glaucoma and retinitis pigmentosa. Moreover, at least 75 debilitating, and often lethal, diseases are directly attributable to deletions or mutations in mitochond Read More

Hypoxia occurs when oxygen availability drops below the levels necessary to maintain normal rates of metabolism. Because of its high metabolic activity, the brain is highly sensitive to hypoxia. Severe or prolonged oxygen deprivation in the brain contributes to the damage associated with stroke and a variety of other neuronal disorders. Conversely, the extreme hypoxic environment found in the core of many brain tumors Read More