About this Research Topic
It is well known that cognitive disabilities strongly affect functioning in society, having negative input not only on patients but also on their relatives.
Cognitive disturbances may constitute a separate group of central nervous system (CNS) disorders or may accompany numerous mental or neurodegenerative disorders. Learning and memory deficits are observed in depressive, schizophrenia and autistic patients, or those suffering from Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases. Regardless of the disease, cognitive symptoms strongly contribute to worsening the quality of life and, in a majority of cases, are treatment-resistant. At present, there are no satisfactory procognitive drugs that would treat and reverse cognitive decline, partially because the mechanisms of the psychopathology of those disorders are not fully understood. Many theories attempt to describe the pathological processes that underlie those pathologies, and probably one does not exclude the other. However, AMPA-and NMDA-receptor mediated signaling, long-term potentiation and glutamatergic system seem to have a pivotal role in memory consolidation. Also prenatal and postnatal development, nutrition and parental care contribute to synaptogenesis and proper maturation of the central nervous system (CNS), thus having an impact on higher activities of CNS, including cognition.
On the basis of different theories that underlie learning and memory deficits, a variety of putative targets for novel procognitive compounds has been proposed. The latest discoveries point to NMDA receptor and NMDA-mediated signaling, nicotinic or muscarinic receptors (mACh) for acetylcholine, and metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors as promising targets. Many preclinical and clinical trials with ligands for those receptors were performed and published.
With this Research Topic we aim to bring together recent discoveries on the brain mechanisms involved in cognition, on the causes of cognitive decline observed in patients and on the mechanisms that lead to learning and memory deficits. Also, novel strategies for the treatment of cognitive deficits will be presented. All contributions addressing molecular aspects of cognition, behavioral analysis of novel drugs, animal models reflecting learning and memory abilities and all respective experimental applications, state of the art in this hot and interesting Research Topic, will be welcome.
Cognitive disturbances may constitute a separate group of central nervous system (CNS) disorders or may accompany numerous mental or neurodegenerative disorders. Learning and memory deficits are observed in depressive, schizophrenia and autistic patients, or those suffering from Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases. Regardless of the disease, cognitive symptoms strongly contribute to worsening the quality of life and, in a majority of cases, are treatment-resistant. At present, there are no satisfactory procognitive drugs that would treat and reverse cognitive decline, partially because the mechanisms of the psychopathology of those disorders are not fully understood. Many theories attempt to describe the pathological processes that underlie those pathologies, and probably one does not exclude the other. However, AMPA-and NMDA-receptor mediated signaling, long-term potentiation and glutamatergic system seem to have a pivotal role in memory consolidation. Also prenatal and postnatal development, nutrition and parental care contribute to synaptogenesis and proper maturation of the central nervous system (CNS), thus having an impact on higher activities of CNS, including cognition.
On the basis of different theories that underlie learning and memory deficits, a variety of putative targets for novel procognitive compounds has been proposed. The latest discoveries point to NMDA receptor and NMDA-mediated signaling, nicotinic or muscarinic receptors (mACh) for acetylcholine, and metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors as promising targets. Many preclinical and clinical trials with ligands for those receptors were performed and published.
With this Research Topic we aim to bring together recent discoveries on the brain mechanisms involved in cognition, on the causes of cognitive decline observed in patients and on the mechanisms that lead to learning and memory deficits. Also, novel strategies for the treatment of cognitive deficits will be presented. All contributions addressing molecular aspects of cognition, behavioral analysis of novel drugs, animal models reflecting learning and memory abilities and all respective experimental applications, state of the art in this hot and interesting Research Topic, will be welcome.
Keywords: cognition, metabotropic receptors, animal models, psychotropic drugs, learning, memory, consolidation
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