A combined team of researchers from the University of South Australia and Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China, have discovered a drug that can mollify the advancement of cognitive deficits in Alzheimer’s Disease. The drug is known as Edaravone.

According to the researchers, the drug Edaravone can significantly improve functions of learning and memory; and it can suppress the toxic functions of amyloid beta to nerve cells by inhibiting the amyloid beta production enzyme and bind the toxic amyloid peptide – an intercellular deposit of starch-like material in the tissues which results in degeneration of nerve cells.

The study was done in a mouse model of the disease with multiple mechanisms involved. Its findings was published in the journal PNAS .

For now, the drug is available only in some Asian countries for the treatment of ischemic stroke – the most common kind of stroke cause by an interruption in the flow of blood to the brain.

The researchers warn Edaravone should not be used for Alzheimer’s patients unless appropriate clinical trials are done.

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