Could Cancer Drug Aid Memory in Alzheimer's Patients?

A drug currently used in cancer therapies could possibly help improve memory function in patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s, according to new research.

For its study, a team led by Kasia Bieszczad, PhD, assistant professor in the department of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California-Irvine, administered RGFP966—a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor used in cancer treatment—to laboratory rats. The rats were taught to listen to a certain sound to receive a reward, and the authors found that those that received RGFP966 after training retained information and responded accurately to the sound more often than the rats that were not given the drug.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Are Diabetes and Alzheimer's Disease Linked?
Alzheimer's Disease-Blocking Molecule Identified
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The rats that were given the drug were also more attuned to acoustic signals they heard during the training. According to the authors, this finding suggests the drug helped to “store” relevant sounds more effectively, which is vital to human speech and language.

Most importantly, the results drive home the point that drugs alone may not be enough for treating and managing patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, says Bieszczad.

“A common conception for treating disease is that simply taking a drug as if it was a vitamin in your morning routine is sufficient to alter symptoms,” says Bieszczad. “But in neurological conditions, it is a quick fix at best. The effects of drugs on many neurological conditions are incomplete and temporary, often only delaying progression of the disease rather than correcting the root causes.” 

The effects Bieszczad and colleagues saw in this study “support promise of a new approach.”

“What is critically important to the neural effects we report is that the drug is taken in conjunction with behavioral training—learning a new task, a new piece of information, associating new sensory information with what it means and why it is important,” continues Bieszczad. “These are the necessary initial steps. The drug’s effects on memory and neuroplasticity exist only as they ride on the wave of learning—the behavioral task of learning something new and important.”

As such, Bieszczad offers the “strong suggestion” to include behavior tasks along with the drug of choice in treating patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

“Some of these tasks could be as simple as doing a crossword puzzle, reading a new book, solving picture puzzles, playing card games, etc. The behavioral aspects of treatment may turn out to be a necessary platform for drug efficacy in neurological conditions.

—Mark McGraw

Reference

Bieszczad K, Bichay K, et al. Histone Deacetylase Inhibition via RGFP966 Releases the Brakes on Sensory Cortical Plasticity and the Specificity of Memory Formation. J Neuro Sci. 2015.