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Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a protein produced by the gene of the same name. It is one of a group of proteins called neurotrophins that help nerve cells grow, specialize and survive. Alleles are parts of genes that work in pairs on the chromosomes to determine a person's traits. "We found that people with Alzheimer's risk who have this BDNF gene mutation called the Met allele may have a more rapid decline of memory and thinking skills," said study author Ozioma Okonkwo, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in Madison, Wisc. "Because this gene can be detected before the symptoms of Alzheimer's start, and because this presymptomatic phase is thought to be a critical period for treatments that could delay or prevent the disease, it could be a great target for early treatments." For the study, researchers followed 1,023 people with an average age of 55 for up to 13 years who were at risk for Alzheimer's disease bu...

All of these functions -- and many more, from muscle contraction to modulation of sleep, attention, learning and memory -- involve nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which come in different varieties that determine their role. "Based on their location and subunit composition, nicotinic acetylcholine receptors have different functions, biophysical properties and pharmacological characteristics," said Ayman K. Hamouda, BPharm, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Texas A&M College of Pharmacy and the Department of Neuroscience & Experimental Therapeutics at the Texas A&M College of Medicine. "We're trying to develop drugs to modulate those functions, but in a far more selective way than anything currently on the market." It became relatively easy to develop what is called a nicotinic acetylcholine agonist, which is a compound that binds to and activates a receptor. Years of research have yielded a pretty go...