Alzheimer s Disease ( Ad ) - 1112 Words

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a complex, multifactorial neurodegenerative disease that is currently being managed by symptomatic treatment. The affected areas include the central nervous system (CNS) which is made up of the brain and spinal cord. The brain is essential in managing our thoughts, cognitive abilities, and our ability to interact with the environment. AD patients are known to experience symptoms such as memory loss in the early stages which develop into speaking difficulties to eventually hallucinations. The commonly used AD treatments include Donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine and memantine. Only the last two will be discussed in this essay and novel treatments. The current treatments for AD focus on relieving symptoms†¦show more content†¦The epsilon4 allele of apolipoprotein E4 (ApoE4) which is located in chromosome 19 is linked to the onset and progression of AD. The synaptic loss is due to a loss of cholinergic neurones which transmits nerve signa ls in the brain which are known to be linked to memory formation (figure 2). Amyloid plaques cause this loss. S.McGREEVEY et al,2013. J. Cerebral Blood Flow Metabolism, 2006,1562–1576. ACh and memory ACh helps in memory formation by facilitating cell to cell signalling of the cholinergic neurones in the frontal cortex of the brain (thoughts and action). ACh is synthesised by choline transferase enzyme (ChaT) in the cytoplasm of the pre-synaptic neurone (figure 3). Currently approved medicines such as galantamine and memantine are used to treat AD (ACh inhibitors) that aims to alleviate symptoms of AD. Galantamine mechanism of action Galantamine is a tertiary alkaloid selective AChE inhibitor (mild action). AD disease is associated with down regulation of nicotinic receptors and NMDAR (Lenzken et al,2007), but with stimulation. As a result of administering galantamine this releases excitatory neurotransmitters ACh and glutamate which protects against beta-amyloid (1-40 peptide) toxicity in the brain, and cell death (antiapoptotic). Galantamine has the ability to protect against cell death and its neuroprotective mechanism by acting as a