Tyrosine kinase SYK (spleen tyrosine kinase), an enzyme involved in immune signaling, could play a key role in Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and other neurodegenerative diseases, according to a study from the University of Virginia (UVA). SYK regulates the activity of microglia, preventing the accumulation of secretions associated with AD or MS produced in these pathologies.
Psychiatric animal models are a challenge by their nature. Whether a drug is blocking tumor growth in a rodent is easy enough to measure, although still hard to translate. But how does one figure out what a mouse is thinking? Actually, one doesn’t. There is “no way in heck I’m going to claim that I can model a thought disorder in rodents, so forget about that,” Bita Moghaddam told her audience at the opening keynote of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) annual conference this weekend. But other aspects of mental disorders, she argued, can be usefully modeled.
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