Targeting Sigma Receptors for the Treatment of Neurodegenerative and Neurodevelopmental Disorders
- PMID:37166702
- PMCID: PMC10173947
- DOI: 10.1007/s40263-023-01007-6
Targeting Sigma Receptors for the Treatment of Neurodegenerative and Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Abstract
The sigma-1 receptor is a 223 amino acid-long protein with a recently identified structure. The sigma-2 receptor is a genetically unrelated protein with a similarly shaped binding pocket and acts to influence cellular activities similar to the sigma-1 receptor. Both proteins are highly expressed in neuronal tissues. As such, they have become targets for treating neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Huntington's disease (HD), Parkinson's disease (PD), multiple sclerosis (MS), Rett syndrome (RS), developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEE), and motor neuron disease/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (MND/ALS). In recent years, there have been many pre-clinical and clinical studies of sigma receptor (1 and 2) ligands for treating neurological disease. Drugs such as blarcamesine, dextromethorphan and pridopidine, which have sigma-1 receptor activity as part of their pharmacological profile, are effective in treating multiple aspects of several neurological diseases. Furthermore, several sigma-2 receptor ligands are under investigation, including CT1812, rivastigmine and SAS0132. This review aims to provide a current and up-to-date analysis of the current clinical and pre-clinical data of drugs with sigma receptor activities for treating neurological disease.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
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