lucidamide for #parkinsons

7.19..22: news.med/parkinsons/lucidamide:
7.22: summary:
. noöpept (available as lucidamide)
has been shown in nerve cells in a dish
to save them from death due to the addition of
the alpha-synuclein that is associated with
cell damage in Parkinson's .
. while this alone hardly warrants use in humans,
noopept is known to be safe for humans,
and is used for enhanced memory and less anxiety.

J Mol Biol. 2011, full text, simplified:
. the symptoms of Parkinson's include
abnormal deposits within brain cells
composed primarily of α-synuclein (alpha-synuclein)
a normally randomly folded protein that in Parkinson's
starts bunching up to form the Lewy bodies in nerve cells.
. the genetically caused form of Parkinson's
shows several mutations all affecting alpha-synuclein,
causing it to bunch up (form aggregates or amyloids)
in tests done in vitro (cells outside the body).
. the smaller water-soluble bunches of alpha-synuclein
are the most toxic to nerve cells,
so perhaps the larger insoluble bunches
are a way of getting rid of the toxic forms.
. certain drugs can reduce the formation of
the toxic forms alpha-synuclein bunching
including dopamine, and Curcumin.
. the drug noopept protects brain cells
by being an antioxidant, an anti-inflammatory, and
an inhibitor of excessive calcium and glutamate
which are important nerve toxins.
. noopept improves spatial memory,
and in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease,
it improves the immune systems reaction to
Amyloid-beta amyloids (insoluble protein bunchings
are thus eaten and carried away).
. noopept was tested on nerve cells in a dish;
the nerve cells came from a neuroblastoma
(a cancer that can be reproduced forever)
this particular family of cells is SH-SY5Y.
. they found that noopept accelerates the rate of
alpha-synuclein bunching,
so it quickly takes it from the most toxic small form
to a larger form that is not toxic.
. they found that when fresh alpha-synuclein was applied
there was no die-off;
but when 7-day-aged alpha-synuclein was added,
then there was die-off
except when noopept was also added;
indicating that the 7-day-aged alpha-synuclein
was forming the toxic small soluble bunchings,
but that noopept was removing this toxin
by having them merge into larger bunchings.
(the terminology for that is:
"inducing the sequestration of the
toxic amyloid oligomers
into less harmful fibrillar material.")
. addition of toxic alpha-synuclein also raises
oxygen radicals to unhealthy levels;
but noopept also reduced the oxygen radicals
(as would be expected since it reduced
the toxic alpha-synuclein that caused it).
[J Mol Biol. 2011]

. some forms of Parkinson's may be at risk for
some forms of Alzheimer's:
. increasingly, cases of Parkinson's disease (PD)
are also seen with Dementia;
such cases are termed PD dementia
. up to 50% of patients with Parkinson's Dementia
also develop sufficient numbers of amyloid-β plaques
and tau-containing neurofibrillary tangles
for a secondary diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease,
and these pathologies may act synergistically
with Parkinson's α-synuclein pathology
to confer a worse prognosis
[Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2013].