Novel therapeutic strategies in neural diseases uncover unexpected disease connections: from neurodegeneration and addiction to pain and depression.

摘要

The neurobiology of disease is moving forward at a very rapid pace. Thus, pharmacologists as well as all the broad range of researchers working in the development of new drugs active in neural tissues have to make an extraordinary effort to make Neuropharmacology move as fast as our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying neural diseases grows. For instance, some time ago, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders such as drug abuse, were considered unlinked and, consequently, were treated independently. Less time ago, it could not have been predicted that a health problem of the human kind for centuries like drug addiction shares disease mechanisms with devastating contemporary disorders such as obesity and eating disorders.