Central Nervous System Agents in Medicinal Chemistry (Formerly Current Medicinal Chemistry - Central Nervous System Agents) - Volume 7, Issue 3, 2007

Conventional antipsychotic drugs, which have been used for a half century to treat a range of major psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, are being replaced by modern “atypical antipsychotics”. Although the term “atypical” has been applied broadly to antipsychotic drugs marketed in the past decade, these newer drugs are strikingly heterogeneous in chemical, pharmacological, and clinical points of view. Recently, much a Read More

Amphotericin B remains an important choice for central nervous system (CNS) fungal infections, although its adverse effects have limited its use, especially nephratoxicity. New formulations of amphotericin B, new azoles and echinocandins have been developed for clinical use in the past decade. However, high mortality is associated with CNS fungal infections, especially those due to filamentous fungi. Mortality risk of cere Read More

Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by a Lewy body-degeneration of presynaptic nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons. This degeneration can be visualized by nuclear medicine methods, primarily by FP-CIT SPECT: Fluoropropyl-Carbomethoxy-Iodophenyl-Tropan (FP-CIT), marked by radioactive 123iodine, binds to dopamine reuptake transporters at the presynaptic membrane of the nigral dopaminergic ne Read More

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that hypofunction of glutamatergic neurotransmission via N-methyl-Daspartate (NMDA) receptors might be implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The NMDA receptor hypofunction hypothesis of schizophrenia suggests that increasing NMDA receptor function via pharmacological manipulation could provide a potential new strategy for the management of schizophrenia. Curre Read More

The development of CNS drugs has been the most challenging task in drug design. Only an abysmal one percent of nervous system drugs tested in human clinical trials ever reach market. This is largely attributable to the difficulties in both identifying appropriate targets and in understanding the toxicology, pharmacology, and pharmaceutical properties of therapeutic compounds. Pesticides have not attracted much attention in th Read More

A series of Schiff bases of menthone has been synthesized using an appropriate synthetic route and characterized using Thin Layer Chromatography and spectral analysis. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for anticonvulsant activity against maximal electro shock (MES) and strychnine induced seizures model in rats. The neurotoxicity and behavioral depressant studies were also carried out using rotorod Read More

Mitochondria are key players in the energetic metabolism, providing energy for almost every cellular process, playing also a central role in the maintenance of normal cellular function. The brain has a high energy demand; hence neurons are especially susceptible to disturbances in oxygen and nutrient availability. Such disturbances, as observed in pathologies such as ischemia/reperfusion or stroke, can represent an insult w Read More