Short article
New therapeutic molecules developed at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) show promise in reversing the memory loss linked to depression and aging.
It has taken a series of studies culminating in the most recent, published in in Molecular Neuropsychiatry, to get to the stage they are at now with this research. The starting point for this happened when Dr. Sibille, and his team, identified the specific impairments to brain cell receptors in the GABA neurotransmitter system. These findings then lead to results showing that in depression and aging this was an actual causal impairment affecting both mood and memory loss.
The molecules developed in response to this are chemical tweaks of a class of anti anxiety and sedative medications called benzodiazapines which do target the GABA activity in the brain. It was designed with the intention of being a fix for the impairment which should result in an improvement on symptoms.
Preclinical trials based on a single dose of these molecules have shown repeatable results on stress induced memory loss within 30 minutes of receiving them. In other preclinical trials involving models with age related memory loss where rapidly reversed inducing a level reached seen in early adulthood by 80%. The improvement in function and mood lasted for over two months with daily treatment. This is why clinical trials on humans will be run in the near future, this small sample result is enough to base trials on. The future of such medical intervention on potential applications is very wide as not only is there a lack of treatment for cognitive deficits in mental illness, but the brain improvements suggest the molecules could help to prevent the memory loss at the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease, potentially delaying its onset.
“The aged cells regrew to appear the same as young brain cells, showing that our novel molecules can modify the brain in addition to improving symptoms,” says Dr. Sibille. He expects to start testing the molecules in clinical research in two years. “We’ve shown that our molecules enter the brain, are safe, activate the target cells and reverse the cognitive deficit of memory loss.”
Latest study; https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/496086
Article sourced from; camh.ca/en/camh-news