Central nervous system neuronal damage

Toggas SM, Masliah E, Mucke L (1996) Prevention of HIV-1 gpl20-induced neuronal damage in the central nervous system of transgenic mice by the NMDA receptor antagonist memantine. Brain Res 706 303-307... 

Tso and Lam suggested that astaxanthin could be useful for prevention and treatment of neuronal damage associated with age-related macular degeneration and may also be effective in treating ischemic reperfusion injury, Alzheimer s disease, Parkinson s disease, spinal cord injuries, and other types of central nervous system injuries. Astaxanthin was found to easily cross the blood-brain barrier and did not form crystals in the eye. 

Incidents of vincristine overdosage have been reported relatively frequently in the medical literature. Some of these have involved inadvertent administration of the intravenous formulation into the central nervous system by the intrathecal route this produces devastating results by a combination of chemical damage to sensitive neuronal tissue as well as biochemical perturbations. Two representative cases of vincristine overdose were described (46) involving administration of vincristine to patients scheduled to receive vinblastine. In one patient toxicity initially involved vomiting and diarrhea with subsequent constipation and paralytic ileus (inhibition of motor activity in the small intestine). Muscle pain... 

Synthetic drugs of comparable selectivity and affinity to the 1,4-dihydropyridines do not yet exist for the other channel types, T, N, P/Q, and R these remain characterized by complex polypeptide toxins of the aga- and conotoxin classes. Neuronal pharmacology, including that of the central nervous system (CNS), is dominated by the N, P/Q, and R channels. This underscores the normally weak effect of L-channel antagonists on CNS function. Drugs that act at the N, P, and R channels with comparable selectivity and affinity to the 1,4-dihydropyridines may be expected to offer major potential for a variety of CNS disorders, including neuronal damage and death from ischemic insults. 

Sakhi S., Bruce A., Sun N., Tocco G., Baudry M., and Schreiber S. S. (1994). p53 induction is associated with neuronal damage in the central nervous system. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91 7525-7529. 

Hall, E.D., McCall, J.M. Chase, R.L., Yonkers, P.A. and Braughler, J.M. (1987) A nonglucocorticoid steroid analog of methylprednisolone duplicates its high-dose pharmacology in models of central nervous system trauma and neuronal membrane damage, J. Pharmacol. Exp. 242, 137-142. 

---