The chemistry of organic polycyclic cage compounds has intrigued medicinal chemists for over 50 years, yet little is published about their pharmacological profiles. Polycyclic cage compounds have important pharmaceutical applications, ranging from the symptomatic and proposed curative treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease (e.g., amantadine and memantine), to use as anti-viral agents against influenza and the immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The polycyclic cage appears to be a useful scaffold to yield drugs with a wide scope of applications, and can be used also to modify and improve the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of drugs in current use. This review attempts to summarize the pharmacological profiles of polycyclic cage compounds with an emphasis on the lesser known pentacycloundecanes, homocubanes, and trishomocubanes.

Oxidative stress has been strongly implicated in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). In recent years, antioxidants - especially those of dietary origin - have been suggested as possible agents useful for the prevention and treatment of AD. This article reviews the role of oxidative stress and the contribution of free radicals in the development of AD, and also discusses the use of antioxidants as a therapeutic strategy in the amelioration of this illness. The antioxidant potential of polyphenolic compounds obtained from dietary sources, such as anthocyanins from berries, catechins and theaflavins from tea, curcumin from turmeric, resveratrol from grapes and peanuts, the dihydrochalcones aspalathin and nothofagin from rooibos and the xanthone mangiferin from honeybush, are discussed in this review. The neuroprotective effects of these phytochemicals in preclinical models of AD are highlighted. Finally, innovative concepts, novel hypotheses, current challenges and future directions in the use of dietary polyphenols for the treatment of AD are discussed.

Curcumin possesses therapeutic potential in the amelioration of a host of neurodegenerative ailments as evidenced by its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-protein aggregation effects. However, issues such as limited bioavailability and a paucity of clinical studies examining its therapeutic effectiveness in illnesses such as AD and PD currently limit its therapeutic outreach. Considerable effort will be required to adapt curcumin as a neuroprotective agent to be used in the treatment of AD, PD and other neurodegenerative diseases.

No abstract

The multiple disease etiologies that lead to neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington disease, schizophrenia, depressive illness and stroke, offer significant challenges to drug discovery efforts aimed at preventing or even reversing the progression of these disorders. Transcriptomic tools and proteomic profiling have clearly indicated that such diseases are multifactorial in origin. Further, they are thought to be initiated by a cascade of molecular events that involve several neurotransmitter systems. In response to this complexity, a new paradigm has recently emerged that challenges the widely held assumption that 'silver bullet' agents are superior to 'dirty drugs' in therapeutic approaches aimed at the prevention or treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases. A similar pattern of drug development has occurred in strategies for the treatment of cancer, AIDS and cardiovascular diseases. In this review, we offer an overview of therapeutic strategies and novel investigative drugs discovered or developed in our own and other laboratories, that address multiple CNS etiological targets associated with an array of neuropsychiatric disorders.

The neurodegeneration of Parkinson's disease (PD) 1 targets dopaminergic neurons that project to the striatum (1). In PD the progressive loss of striatal dopamine leads to a progressive deterioration in motor function. Despite the availability of dopamine-replacement strategies that generally offer considerable symptomatic relief early in the disease, as yet no therapy has been shown to slow the underlying neurodegenerative process.Adenosine A 2A receptor antagonists recently have attracted attention as potential neuroprotective agents because of a remarkable convergence of epidemiological and laboratory data that link the A 2A receptor to the development of PD (2). Prospective studies of several large populations have shown that caffeine consumption is associated with a reduced risk of developing PD (3,4). The risk of PD decreased with increasing prior intake of coffee or of caffeine from other sources and was independent of smoking status or other potential confounding factors. Notably, consumption of decaffeinated coffee was not related to PD risk (4).The possibility that the reduced risk of PD among caffeine consumers is due to a neuroprotective effect of caffeine has been supported by our finding that caffeine can reduce dopaminergic neuron toxicity in a mouse model of PD (5). Low doses of caffeine can attenuate the loss of striatal dopamine and of dopamine transporter (DAT) binding sites induced by 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). The neuroprotection by caffeine, a nonspecific adenosine receptor antagonist (6), could be mimicked by relatively specific adenosine A 2A receptor antagonists but not an A 1 antagonist (5, 7). A 2A receptor knockout mice also were resistant to MPTP-induced depletion of striatal dopamine. Together these laboratory data have suggested a potential neurobiological basis for the inverse association between caffeine use and PD.Here we examine the neuroprotective properties of 8-(3-chlorostyryl)caffeine (CSC), a selective and potent A 2A antagonist closely related to caffeine (8) in the MPTP model of PD (9). Because the neurotoxicity of MPTP requires its oxidation to the active toxin, the 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP ϩ ) species, by monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B), we investigated the effects of CSC on MPTP metabolism in vivo and on MAO activity in vitro. The results of these studies offer new insight into structure-activity relationships for MAO-B inhibitors and suggest a

We have previously shown that nicotine, the addictive component of tobacco products, alters the blood-brain barrier (BBB) Na ϩ ,K ϩ ,2Cl Ϫ cotransporter (NKCC) during in vitro hypoxiaaglycemia exposure. Attenuation of abluminal NKCC suggests that accumulation of ions in the brain extracellular fluid would result in an increase of fluid or cytotoxic edema in the brain during hypoxia-aglycemia or stroke conditions. To further investigate whether nicotine products have the potential to worsen stroke outcome by increasing edema formation, two separate models to mimic stroke conditions were utilized to decipher the effects of short-term and long-term administrations of nicotine products on brain edema following stroke. Oxygen glucose deprivation (OGD) was studied in rat hippocampal slices with short-term or long-term exposure to nicotine and cigarette smoke constituents. During short-term exposure, the presence of nicotine at a concentration mimicking heavy smokers increased water content of hippocampal slices during OGD. Furthermore, long-term 1-week administration of nicotine increased water content in hippocampal slices that could be attenuated with nicotine acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) antagonists, suggesting nicotine increase edema during OGD via nAChRs. A second model of focal ischemia, middle cerebral artery occlusion, showed an increase of infarct size during short-term exposure to nicotine and an increase of edema during both short-term and long-term administration of nicotine, compared with saline controls. These findings support the paradigm that nicotine products not only increase the incidence of stroke but also have the potential to worsen stroke outcome by increased edema formation.

No abstract