Maybe this has something to do with it - rather than looking at possible uses of Protexia for Alzheimer's, they may evaluate Protexia in a "head to head" trial with Galantamine, an Alzheimer's treatment that has the side-effect of protecting the brain from the after-effects of neurotixin exposure, to see if there is an equivalent level of neurological protection?
as a sort-of reference, check out the first listing of a Google search for
The study found that galantamine, a drug originally extracted from snowdrop flowers currently approved to treat Alzheimer's disease, could be used as an antidotal therapy to counteract the lethal effects of even the most deadly organophosphorus compounds.
"The only medication currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent the catastrophic effects of nerve agent poisoning does not protect the brain," says Dr. Albuquerque. "This medication, pyridostigmine, doesn't effectively cross the blood-brain barrier."
Most animals treated with pyridostigmine and exposed to toxic doses of nerve agents survive when they receive a combination of other medications, including atropine, oximes and benzodiazepines. However, even with this drug cocktail, animals surviving the initial nerve agent exposure can develop neurological effects.
Dr. Albuquerque and his colleagues studied the effects of galantamine in an animal model to counteract the neurological devastation caused by nerve agents and organophosphorus pesticides. "We wanted to test a drug with neuroprotective properties that is widely available and safe and could be as effective taken before as it would be taken after an exposure," says Dr. Albuquerque. "Galantamine fit that description."
In the study, those animals treated with galantamine and later exposed to lethal doses of soman or sarin survived and showed no signs of the most common symptoms of exposure to nerve agents, such as convulsions, respiratory distress and loss of coordinated movement. Comparatively, those animals treated with the standard therapy of atropine and benzodiazepines died after exposure. "To our amazement, the animals treated with galantamine behaved as if they had not been exposed to these lethal agents," says Dr. Albuquerque. The researchers repeated the experiments with paraoxon, the active metabolite of the insecticide parathion, and again, all of the animals survived with no signs of toxicity.
Because it is difficult to predict when a person might be exposed to toxic levels of nerve agents on the battlefield or in a terrorist attack, or to toxic levels of insecticides during farm and garden work, the researchers also studied whether treatment with galantamine following exposure could counteract their toxicity effectively.
"All the animals treated with the antidotal therapy consisting of galantamine and atropine within five minutes after an exposure to lethal doses of soman and paraoxon survived with no side effects," says Dr. Albuquerque.
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