PMID: 16518127Mar 7, 2006Paper

The anti-dementia drugs: myth, hype or reality?

Clinical Neuropharmacology
Hervé AllainDanièle Bentue-Ferrer

Abstract

The neurodegenerative diseases are in need of drugs that are capable of treating their many different presentations. Some drugs have recently been developed and approved by the authorities for use in Alzheimer's disease; their beneficial effects are no longer questionable. From the discussion about what to call these drugs (anti-dementia drugs?), it is apparent that pharmacology research has veered from pursuing the myth of the fountain of eternal youth back to the reality of the struggle for survival of neurons whenever they are attacked, long before the signs of dementia have developed (antiapoptotic drugs?). The neurosciences teach that there is a biology of cognition (hence a pharmacology of cognition), and that the brain is the permanent area of the confrontation between neurogenesis and apoptosis. Pharmacology has taken this new understanding on board, and has finally defined its objective as preventing the decline of the neuron as much as of cognitive performance. It remains for clinicians to confirm the authenticity of this worldwide project.

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Citations

Oct 11, 2007·The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry : the Official Journal of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry·Miro JakovljevicRadmila Topic

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Apoptosis

Apoptosis is a specific process that leads to programmed cell death through the activation of an evolutionary conserved intracellular pathway leading to pathognomic cellular changes distinct from cellular necrosis

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