Neurosicence/Biology Question A pharmaceutical company is developing a new drug

Question

Neurosicence/Biology Question

A pharmaceutical company is developing a new drug which up-regulates cholinergic signaling in the brain (e.g. causes more ACh to be produced and released).  They believe this will work as a general “intelligence booster” and make people who take it smarter.  Their approach is based on scientific observations that cholinergic signaling is associated with attention and spatiotemporal memory formation, that damage to cholinergic nuclei in the basal forebrain interfere with the ocular dominance shift (which is a form of experience-dependent plasticity), that cholinergic neurons are some of the first to die in Alzheimer’s disease and presage intellectual decline, and on models suggesting that muscarinic signaling increases the contribution of intracortical projections associated with “thought” as opposed to “sensory processing”.

You are hired as a consultant for a venture capital firm that is considering investing in this drug.  What is the strongest single argument you can make for why this drug is unlikely to work as advertised (i.e. unlikely to make people that take it smarter)?

Explanation / Answer

Ans- Drugs that up-regulates cholinergic signals in the brain are harmful for the body.These drugs leads to excessive production and release of Acetylcholine(ACh). The daily recommended intake of ACh is around 400 mg for women and about 550 mg for men.This amount of acetylcholine is supplied by a proper diet that we take.The cholinergic drugs increase the level of acetylcholine in our body and thus leads to adverse health effects.

The strongest single argument that I can make for why this drug is unlikely to work is its side effects.The major side effects are as follows.These drugs produce excess of ACh which-

1) Lowers the blood pressure

2) Decreases the heart rate and cardiac output thus increasing the risk of heart disease

3) Leads to impaired thinking (causes confusion, memory loss and hallucinations)

4) Leads to depression and irritability

5) Causes sweating, headache, shortness of breath, dry mouth

6) Causes stomach problems like diarrhoea and stomach cramps followed by nausea and vomiting

7)Causes pain in muscles and joints

8) Leads to muscle twitching and convulsions( followed by paralysis)

Hence these are the harmful effects of excessive acetylcholine caused by intake of cholinergic drugs.

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