ABSTRACT
Among the many progressive neurodegenerative diseases causing dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common, for which aging remains the most significant risk factor. Current Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medications, donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Razadyne), rivastigmine (Exelon), and memantine (Namenda) only provide limited symptomatic relief of cognitive manifestation, yet none alters disease progression. As the aged population rapidly increases around the globe, AD is projected by some to affect 1 in every 85 people by the year 2050 (Brookmeyer et al., 2007). Therefore, it is of urgent need to develop more potent symptomatic agents to manage cognitive impairment and other clinical manifestations of AD; and to develop disease-modifying agents that can either prevent or delay the onset of the disease, slow down disease progression once it starts, and more optimistically, reverse disease pathology and cognitive decline.
