Current Medicinal Chemistry - Central Nervous System Agents - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2001

Cytokines are proteins that play an important role in the control of different diseases but, produced in excess or in the wrong site, they can cause pathological changes. The existence of the basic effector subsets of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines is now well accepted, and is being used to plan therapeutic strategies for inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disorde Read More

Cholecystokinin (CCK) is involved in essential physiological processes, through its interaction with two receptors (CCK1, CCK2). Numerous CCK2-selective agonists and antagonists have been synthesised however, the therapeutic interest for CCK2 ligands has remained focused on antagonists, endowed with anxiolytic or antiulcer properties, and capable of potentiating the analgesic effects of morphine fewer research has been Read More

The neurotrophic factors are proteins that enhance neuronal survival, differentiation, neurotransmitter function and resistance to neurotoxins and lesion. For these reasons the neurotrophic factors are considered as a new potential therapeutic tool for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, a group of diseases that produce the most important cause for disability in the Western world.Neurotrophic factors are used i Read More

Since the early nineties the number of scientific papers dealing with the applications of artificial neural networks (ANNs) in medicinal chemistry and medicine fields has been dramatically increasing. In this review, the applications of artificial neural networks in QSAR, concerning the classification or prediction of a biological activity, conformation searching, receptor docking and molecular design, are reviewed over the last five yea Read More