Researchers in London have cut through the complexity of the genetics underlying bipolar spectrum disorder (BSD) to discover single nucleotide polymorphisms they say are specific enough to form the basis of the first ever biomarker-based diagnostic test in psychiatry.
Researchers at Shanghai Jingxin Biomedical Co. Ltd. and Zhejiang Jingxin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. have described fused bicyclic heteroaryl amide compounds acting as α-synuclein (SNCA) aggregation inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of frontotemporal, Lewy body and Parkinson's dementia, multiple system atrophy, and more.
Characterized by periods of deep and profound depression alternating with periods of excessive mania mood swings with diminished sleep, bipolar spectrum disorder (BSD) affected an estimated 40 million people globally in 2019 in the U.S. with a major part of the problem attributed to delays in diagnosis including a mean time of 5-13 years. These delays in BSD diagnosis exert lifelong impacts including heightened suicide risk, relationship strains, impaired work/education performance, significant financial burdens and increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
Transplanted human glial cells could outcompete human glia in a chimeric mouse model of Huntington’s disease, inducing apoptosis. And younger health cells could outcompete older ones. The findings, which appeared online in Nature Biotechnology on July 17, 2023, help pave the way for testing glial cell transplantation as a therapeutic strategy in neurodegenerative disorders.
The growing number of drugs gaining U.S. FDA approval for Alzheimer’s disease has kept their ability to reduce amyloid beta and tau proteins in the news, but the degenerative disease is not simply a matter of tangles and deposits. A loss of synaptic plasticity and disrupted neural networks underlie the signature impairment of memory and cognition – and those, researchers showed in a recent study in Brain, can be strengthened by non-invasive stimulation that addresses the brain’s electrical dysfunction.
Kissei Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has withdrawn its NDA in Japan for rovatirelin (KPS-0373) for the treatment of spinocerebellar degeneration. Kissei, of Osaka, Japan, said it temporarily withdrew the application for marketing approval and would discuss the possibility of conducting additional clinical trials with Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), because the PMDA expressed concern about the approval based on the current clinical trial data.
Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. has released data supporting the memory- and cognition-enhancing effects of TNX-4300 (estianeptine), the single (S)-isomer of tianeptine in preclinical development for depression, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Sosei Heptares is fulfilling its ambition for growth in the Asia-Pacific region by buying the Japanese and South Korea businesses of Swiss biotech Idorsia Ltd. for ¥65 billion (US$463 million), potentially freeing Idorsia from its struggle to prove its stroke drug, Pivlaz (clazosentan), is effective enough to warrant approval in key Western markets.
As quicker, more accurate ways to detect dementia becomes ever more urgent, Cumulus Neuroscience Ltd. has teamed up with the Universities of Bath and Bristol in the U.K. to further develop the Fastball electroencephalogram (EEG) test, a diagnostic test for earlier detection of Alzheimer’s dementia. With one in three people born in the U.K. today likely to develop dementia at some point in their lives, early diagnosis and treatment are essential for them to plan for their future.
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