Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 23, Issue 5, 2017

Background: Dementia is a complex pathological state that affects millions of individuals worldwide and is responsible for a huge socioeconomic burden, making it a major health concern of current times. Given the impact of dementia in both patients and caregivers, it is crucial to fully clarify the molecular mechanisms underlying dementia-associated disorders, since without this knowledge our ability to correctly diagnose and Read More

Persistent neuroinflammation is now recognized as a chief pathological component of practically all neurodegenerative diseases. Neuroinflammation in the central nervous system (CNS), is accompanied with immune responses of glial cells. Glial cells respond to pathological stimuli through antigen presentation, and cytokine and chemokine signaling. Therefore, limiting CNS inflammation represents prospectiv Read More

Background: Mitochondrial function and energy metabolism are impaired in neurodegenerative diseases. There is evidence for these functional declines both within the brain and systemically in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Due to these observations, therapeutics targeted to alter mitochondrial function and energy pathways are increasingly studied in pre-clinical and clini Read More

Proteolytic cleavage has been implicated in the pathogenesis of diverse neurodegenerative diseases involving abnormal protein accumulation. Polyglutamine diseases are a group of nine hereditary disorders caused by an abnormal expansion of repeated glutamine tracts contained in otherwise unrelated proteins. When expanded, these proteins display toxic properties and are prone to aggregate, but the mechanisms Read More

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDD) result in irreversible loss of neurons. Dementia develops when disease-induced neuronal loss becomes sufficient to impair both memory and cognitive functioning and, globally, dementia is increasing to epidemic proportions as populations age. In the current era of regenerative medicine intense activity is asking, can loss of endogenous neurons be compensated by replacement with exogenou Read More

Around ten years ago, the first evidence that targeting microtubule system could be a potential strategy in slowing down neurodegeneration was reported. Several teams have been working to better shape this idea and the scientific community has now the opportunity of fishing into a large amount of data coming from in vitro and in in vivo studies. Notably, these results have driven clinical trials addressing tauopathies. Unfo Read More

Parkinson’s disease is an age-associated progressive neurodegenerative disorder that has gained crescent social and economic impact due to the aging of the western society. All current therapies are symptomatic and fail to reverse or halt the progression of dopaminergic neurons loss. The discovery of the capability of neurotrophic factors to protect these neurons lead numerous research groups to focus their efforts in dev Read More

Background: Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease represent the two most common neurodegenerative disorders, affecting an increasing number of patients worldwide. Population ageing and lack of effective therapies and biomarkers strongly contribute to the socio-economical impact of these conditions. Message and Conclusion: The aim of the review is to present a summary of the discoveries made on the epigenetics of Alzhe Read More