New Drugs for Treating the Cognitive Deficits and Psychotic Symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease

Cognitive deficits and non-cognitive behavioral symptoms are two major therapeutic challenges associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia. We have synthesized a particularly promising compound (the ranitidine analog, JWS-USC-75-IX) that has potent activity in vitro at three important molecular targets for procognitive and antipsychotic activity, thus potentially addressing these therapeutic challenges in a single molecule. The experiments proposed in this application will thus determine (in animal behavior models) the viability of JWS-USC-75-IX as a prototypical AD-therapeutic agent, and will provide a proof of concept for the usefulness of single molecular entities with multiple therapeutic targets.