New Drugs May Transform Down Syndrome

Do you know someone with Down syndrome? How do you feel with their appearance? Do you treat them the same? The people born with Down syndrome are always the ones considered to be the most delayed. In the past years, numbers of people have found better ways for people with this disability to be recovered by just medication. There are many current trials taking place to see how the treatments are progressing. A geneticist from Johns Hopkins University might have found another drug that would fix learning and memory deficits to their condition.

Down syndrome happens in about 1,000 births around the world. It comes from chromosome 21. Back in 2004 researchers hardly new that much of what they could do for the disability but all that has changed. Since then they have developed and become more aware of the disability. This improved knowledge base has led to discoveries with a therapeutic promise. Researchers attempted to restore the cerebellum in mice engineered to show the marks of Down syndrome. This lies at the base of the brain and controls motor functions, motor learning and balance. They hoped to gain a clearer picture of the developmental process that could lead to anomalies in a brain with Down syndrome.

A new way had been presented. They injected a newborn mouse with a chemical that stimulates a neurodevelopmental pathway that shows cerebellum growth. “We were not in fact surprised that we fixed the cerebellum. That was our working hypothesis,” they say but they did not anticipate that three months after the treatment the mice with a restored cerebellum would be able to learn and function properly. They don’t necessarily   know whether they repaired the cerebellum or if it’s responsible for more learning functions.

The treatments for Down syndrome target mainly cerebellum but none target the particular chemical pathway. These studies may point to a pharmaceutical intervention that could allow people with Down syndrome to live their lives more independently and freely without judgment or say. “The possibility of actually giving Down syndrome people the ability to improve learning and memory significantly—that's something I never thought I'd see in my entire career,” Reeves says. “And it's now happening. The game has changed.” From taking in all of what the researchers have shown, there are still lots of test taking place now to fully take care of the people with Down Syndrome and to show that even with a disability we all should be treated the same.


Reference: 
New Drugs May Transform Down Syndrome (March 2014)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-drugs-may-transform-downs-syndrome/