At the 2023 Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease conference, results of a phase 2 proof-of-concept study were presented. Patients with Parkinson’s and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) were given either placebo or a combination of clenbuterol and nadolol for 2 weeks. Neuromelanin MRI showed that after being dosed with the medications, “several cognitive domains witnessed improvement, most notably, statistically significant increases relative to placebo were observed in the number of words recalled immediately (1.12 words; P = .003) and 45 minutes (1.72 words; P = .003) after presentation of an 18-item word list.”
Results showed:
- Statistically significant improvements in episodic memory, attentiveness, and depressive emotional bias
- Observable improvements even 1 days after treatment due to rapid onset of drug effect
- Improvements persisting after the 2 weeks of daily treatment
- No serious or severe adverse events; adverse events seen were mild
Anthony Ford, PhD, chief executive officer, CuraSen Therapeutics, manufacturer of the medication, stated, “For the first time, we have been able to show improved outcomes in cognition and mood with adrenergic agonism in patients with neurodegenerative disease, by safely restoring a stimulus to the brain that is lost early in the pathologic process. With its strong safety profile and impressive effect sizes in key domains, we look forward to testing this fast-acting combination treatment in a longer-term study in Parkinson’s patients later this year.”
