From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Nov 16 1998 - 10:46:46 MST
Some more cholinergic substances to enhance memory.
http://biomednet.com/biomednews/conf/sfn98/Monday/story_6.html :
...
Neuroscientist Edward Levin and his colleagues at Duke University have
found that a nicotine agonist AR-R 17779 can improve learning and
memory in rats undergoing a radial maze test, and have filed for a
patent on the compound. It stimulates a subtype of nicotine receptors
called alpha-7, and was shown to act in the hippocampus. This region
is central to learning and memory, and is often impaired in people
with Alzheimer's disease. "We're excited by these findings", says
Levin, "they indicate that AR 17779 may have potential therapeutic
use".
Similarly, Patrick Lippiello and colleagues at the
R.J. Reynolds Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, have also
developed two compounds - RJR 2557 and RJR-1734 - that also stimulate
Ach receptors in the brain, and which increase both short and
long-term memory in the rat. They were also protected from dying when
later exposed to toxic chemicals that normally cause the cells to
die. This suggests, says Lippiello, that the compounds may have the
ability to prevent the death of brain cells in Alzheimer's disease
patients. But clinical trials of either sets of compounds have yet to
demonstrate this in humans.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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