Ten percent discontinued the study due to an adverse event such as rash, hives or urticaria. Bupropion hydrochloride SR is approved for the treatment of depression and is marketed as Wellbutrin SR by GlaxoSmithKline. This is likely attributable to its enhancement of certain neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine that affect sexual desire. They have found a significant number of brain cells in Alzheimer's patients with extra copies of chromosomes, showing attempts at cell division in cells that are not supposed to divide. This effort to divide is the likely cause of the nerve degeneration and dementia in Alzheimer's disease, say the researchers.
Cancer is characterized by uncontrolled cell division.
In this study, scientists found uncontrolled cell division, arrested in the midst of the process, is the likely cause of the nerve cell destruction. We've been able to show that the duplication of the DNA has occurred in neurons in the Alzheimer's disease brain. By looking at four locations in the genome, we can be pretty confident that the DNA duplicated completely, not just in a few spots, says Herrup, a professor of neurosciences. According to Herrup, memory loss in Alzheimer's disease is always associated with the accumulation of strange deposits in the brain known as plaques and tangles, and that most investigators agree that these deposits are central to the disease, but are not in and of themselves the cause of memory loss. The clinical symptoms are more closely tied to the nerve cell death, but the links between plaques and death were unclear.