Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors and Alzheimers
- Alzheimers Disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and a leading cause of death in developed nations.
It is associated with neuronal death, accumulation of deposits (plaques) and lowering of acetylcholine (ACh)
levels in the cerebral cortex
- The cause of AD is still unknown, and effective therapies are not yet available. However, a number of drugs have
been approved recently to treat the symptoms of the disease, which include memory loss and other cognitive deficits
- These drugs, which include donepezil (Aricept) and tacrine (Cognex), act as inhibitors of
acetylcholinestrase (AChE)
- AChE is an enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine (ACh), one of the principal neurotransmitters in the central
nervous system