title: Pharmacological approaches for Alzheimer's disease: neurotransmitter as drug targets.
abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common CNS disorder occurring worldwide. There is neither proven effective prevention for AD nor a cure for patients with this disorder. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop safer and more efficacious drugs to help combat the tremendous increase in disease progression. The present review is an attempt at discussing the treatment strategies and drugs under clinical trials governing the modulation of neurotransmitter. Therefore, looking at neurotransmitter abnormalities, there is an urge for developing the pharmacological approaches aimed at correcting those abnormalities and dysfunctioning. In addition, this review also discusses the drugs that are in Phase III trials for the treatment of AD. Despite advances in treatment strategies aimed at correcting neurotransmitter abnormalities, there exists a need for the development of drug therapies focusing on the attempts to remove the pathogenomic protein deposits, thus combating the disease progression.
authors.affiliation: Brain Research Laboratory, Faculty of Pharmacy, Campus Puncak Alam, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), 42300 Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Atish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Prakash
authors.forename: Jaspreet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kalra
authors.forename: Vasudevan
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mani
authors.forename: Kalavathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ramasamy
authors.forename: Abu Bakar Abdul
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Majeed
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism*; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D017326:Clinical Trials, Phase III as Topic; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents; D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; neurotransmitter; neurotransmitter dysfunction; pharmacological approaches