Could A Stroke Medication Help Alzheimer's Patients?

New findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) show that researchers are making continuous headway in the fight against Alzheimer's. 

Scientists at the University of South Australia, along with colleagues from Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China, have found that the drug Edaravone can alleviate the progressive cognitive deficit of Alzheimer's disease--a neurodegenerative health issue that has become a major problem worldwide.

The drug is currently available in some Asian countries for treatment of Ischemic stroke. Yet researchers set out to alleviate AD pathologies and improve functions of learning and memory in mouse models of the health issue via multiple mechanisms.

"Edaravone can bind the toxic amyloid peptide which is a major factor leading to degeneration of nerve cells," lead researcher Professor Xin-Fu Zhou, who is UniSA's Research Chair in Neurosciences said, in a news release. "Edaravone can suppress the toxic functions of amyloid beta to nerve cells -- it is a free radical scavenger which suppresses oxidative stress that is a main cause of brain degeneration.

"The drug can suppress the production of amyloid beta by inhibiting the amyloid beta production enzyme. It also inhibits the Tau hyperphosphorylation which can generate tangles accumulated in the brain cells and disrupt brain functions."

However, the researchers stressed that the drug should not be used for Alzheimer's patients before appropriate clinical trials were undertaken.