Patent ID: 7230155

Claim:
A method for determining whether an agent is an agonist of the neuron-specific calcium sensor-1 (NCS-1), for consideration of an agonist of NCS-1 as a drug candidate for therapy of a behavioral disorder or for improving learning and/or memory of a subject, said method comprising the steps of: (a) contacting a non-human animal selected from the group consisting of NCS-1 transgenic C. elegans that overexpress NCS-1 and transgenic mice that overexpress chick NCS-1 under control of the Thy1 promotor with an exogenous agent to be screened in the presence of calcium; and (b) determining NCS-1 activity of said non-human animal, wherein an increase in NCS-1 activity compared with a corresponding control animal is indicative of an agent which is an agonist of NCS-1.