Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0085632 (apathy)
 4,089 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Acetylcholine is a modulatory central nervous system (CNS) neurotransmitter involved in diverse brain processes. Historically, drugs that increase CNS cholinergic transmission have been investigated primarily for relieving cognitive symptoms in Alzheimer"s disease (AD). Emerging from these efforts are recent findings that several cholinesterase-inhibitor agents also have a beneficial effect on selected noncognitive symptoms in AD, such as apathy, psychosis, and purposeless motor behaviors. The broad psychotropic effects of cholinergic agents observed in AD and other degenerative conditions highlight potential symptom-based therapeutic indications for these drugs across a variety of neurologic disorders.
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PMID:Cholinergic therapy for neuropsychiatric symptoms in neurologic disorders. 1112 8

Motivation is a concept largely studied by modern psychology and mainly applied in the fields of learning at school, performance at work, competition in sport. Recently neuropsychiatry put forward the syndrome of apathy, a major disorder of the motivation which appears as frequently observed in several neurodegenerative disorders and in particular in Alzheimer's disease. The question raised in the present review is to detect and gather the data which would prove the existence of a physiology and a neurobiology of the motivation, a real prerequisite for any pharmacological project. Precisely, frontal lobe and cingular cortex appear as critical in the activation of motivational process. Acetylcholine and dopamine, at the present time, are considered as the main neurotransmitters involved in such anatomical circuits explaining that pharmacology focuses its interest on acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and dopamine agonists. Studies specifically devoted to motivation and apathy are anxiously expected and should be based on the most recent acquisitions of the neurophilosophy.
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PMID:[Biology of motivation]. 1568 30

Dysthymia is a depressive mood disorder characterized by chronic and persistent but mild depression. It is often difficult to be distinguished from major depression, specifically in its partially remitted state because "loss of interest" or "apathy" tends to prevail both in dysthymia, and remitted depression. Apathy may also occur in various psychiatric and neurological disorders, including schizophrenia, stroke, Parkinson's disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, Huntington's disease, and dementias such as Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. It is symptomatologically important that apathy is related to, but different from, major depression from the viewpoint of its causes and treatment. Antidepressants, especially noradrenergic agents, are useful for depression-related apathy. However, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may be less effective for apathy in depressed elderly patients and have even been reported to worsen apathy. Dopaminergic agonists seem to be effective for apathy. Acetylcholine esterase inhibitors, methylphenidate, atypical antipsychotics, nicergoline, and cilostazol are another choice. Medication choice should be determined according to the background and underlying etiology of the targeting disease.
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PMID:Dysthymia and apathy: diagnosis and treatment. 2174 95