title: Strategies, development, and pitfalls of therapeutic options for Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Therapeutic options for Alzheimer's disease are currently limited to symptomatic treatment that only provides modest and temporary maintenance of cognitive and memory functions, without altering disease progression. Although a variety of therapeutics targeting amyloid production or plaque degradation as well as tau hyperphosphorylation and aggregation have been proposed, examined in pre-clinical models and introduced into clinical trials, many have failed to provide significant therapeutic benefit. Concerns over the adequacy of currently used pre-clinical models, in addition to questions pertaining to the timing of therapeutic administration, vis-à-vis synaptic and neuronal loss have been raised, and are further complicated by the genetic diversity of individual patients. This review will provide a brief overview of Alzheimer's disease pathophysiology and the currently approved therapeutics, while the main section will focus on therapeutics currently evaluated in pre-clinical models and clinical trials.
authors: Drexel University College of Medicine, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Philadelphia, PA 19129, USA. cjh62@drexel.edu
authors: Christopher
authors: C
authors: Haas
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides / Q000378:metabolism; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D058225:Plaque, Amyloid / Q000473:pathology; D016875:tau Proteins / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents; D016875:tau Proteins