Procognitive Compounds Promote Neurite Outgrowth.

To this date, the only available drugs for treating Alzheimer's disease are cognitive enhancers, which may improve the cognitive function of patients for a few years while the disease continues to progress. As such, there are intense investigations to develop disease-modifying drugs to suppress progressive neurodegeneration. In this study, a range of procognitive compounds are tested in a primary neuronal culture to determine their relative potential for promoting neuritogenesis. We report that donepezil, memantine, dimebon, Pre-084 and 4-IBP are neuritogenic while tacrine, rosemarinic acid, memoquin and a BACE1 inhibitor suppress neurite outgrowth of neurons. The results of this study indicate that some procognitive compounds may possess a disease-modifying potential.