London, UK: In a new study, scientists suggest that an oral medication approved for treating Multiple Sclerosis (MS) could potentially help to slow down the harmful inflammation associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
The pharmaceutical drug Ponesimod received approval from both the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to treat multiple sclerosis in 2021 after successfully completing clinical trials.
Experiments carried out by University of Kentucky researchers have provided evidence that the drug can inhibit excessive immune activity in the nervous system, a process believed to be crucial in the development of dementia.
“We are the first to show that Ponesimod is effective in a mouse model for Alzheimer’s disease,” neuroscientist Mr. Erhard Bieberich, the principal investigator of the study, said.
The researchers used genetically modified mice with Alzheimer’s-like characteristics and brain tissue samples from deceased Alzheimer’s patients. They studied how sphingolipids influence microglia activity and the outcomes of blocking them.
The results appear promising, as there are evident indications that Ponesimod reduces pro-inflammatory cytokines and initiates anti-inflammatory signals that promote microglia to ingest problematic protein clusters and tangles in the brain, as per the researchers.
In our study, we reprogrammed microglia into neuron-protective cells that clean up toxic proteins in the brain, reduce Alzheimer’s neuroinflammatory pathology, and improve memory in the mouse model.
The study’s lead author, Mr. Zhihui Zhu, remarked.
Currently, over 55 million people globally have dementia. By the middle of this century, it’s projected to increase to nearly 140 million as the ageing population grows, with the majority of this increase occurring in developing countries.