Biography
Biography: Qiang Zhou
Abstract
NMDA subtype glutamate receptors play critical roles in the refinement of neural connections during development and learning and memory functions in the adult. Their excessive activation is also believed to have critical contributions to neuronal death under pathological/neurodegenerative conditions, while hypofunction is propsoed to undelie the oncogenesis of certain psychiatric diseases. In this talk, I will discuss our recent efforts in enhancing NMDAR function for treating psychiatric diseases (such as schizophrenia) and inhibiting their activation in treating neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s). For the former approach, we have screened large amount of compounds and identified a few series of positive allosteric modulators (PAMs), and I will discuss their mode of action (such as GluN2A selectivity) and unique and interesting properties. For the latter, I will discuss our evaluation of GluN2B-selective antagonists in Alzheimer’s disease model mice and their therapeutic potentials. I will also briefly discuss the pros and cons of trageting NMDARs in treating brain diseases.