Current Therapeutic Options and Repurposed Drugs for Neurodegeneration

Neurodegenerative diseases are a vast collection of neurological disorders with various clinical and pathological manifestations that impact particular subsets of neurons in distinct functional anatomic systems; they begin for unexplained reasons and advance inexorably. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson's disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, Friedreich ataxia, and Spinal muscular atrophy are the major neurodegenerative diseases. The prevalence and incidence of these diseases rise dramatically with age; thus, the number of cases is expected to increase for the foreseeable future as life spans in many countries continue to increase. Although there are several medicines currently approved for managing neurodegenerative disorders, a large majority of them only help with associated symptoms. The limitations of pharmacotherapy in these disorders have led to an urgent shift towards the development of novel compounds, interventions, and methods that target shared features across the spectrum of neurodegenerative diseases. Drug repurposing is a novel strategy where existing drugs that have already been approved as safe in patients for the management of certain diseases are redeployed to treat other, unindicated diseases. In this chapter, we have covered the current therapeutic options and drugs that can be repurposed or have the potential to be repurposed for the management of various neurodegenerative diseases. 

Keywords: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Friedreich ataxia, Huntington’s disease, Spinal muscular atrophy.