Exercise Mimetics for Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

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Project Summary Dementia or major neurocognitive disorder is a condition of significant cognitive decline that impairs independent living. Learning and memory, executive function, perceptual-motor function, social cognition, and language may be affected. Although dementia is typically associated with aging, it is not a natural component of the aging process. Dementia is associated with several diseases, but most commonly associated with AD (60-80%). AD is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with clinical features that include memory loss, cognitive impairment and dementia. More than 5 million Americans currently live with AD and it is expected to increase to as much as 16 million by 2050. Ten percent of individuals over the age of 65 in the U.S. currently have AD. Current treatments for AD have limited efficacy and there is a significant need for improved pharmacological therapies. AD is characterized by the formation of senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the grey matter of affected individuals. The senile plaques are composed of extracellular deposition of insoluble amyloid beta (Aβ) peptides that are typically associated with a wealth of microglia (brain resident macrophages) and astrocytes. ERRs are orphan receptors that play a key role in regulation of oxidative metabolism, and we have discovered that they function as exercise mimetics and enhance cognitive function in normal and aged mice as well as decrease amyloid plaques in animal models of AD. The goal of this project is to develop optimized ERR agonists that may be effective agents in treatment of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.