Written by Dr. Amy Smith-Dijak Edited by Logan Morrison
Basic biology helps identify a new treatment for ataxia
Drug design doesn’t always have to start with a blank slate. Sometimes understanding how existing drugs work can help researchers to design new ones, or even to recombine old drugs in new and more effective ways. That’s what the researchers behind this paper did. They investigated the basic biology of three existing drugs: chlorzoxazone, baclofen, and SKA-31.
Two of these – chlorzoxazone and baclofen – are already FDA-approved for use as muscle relaxants, and chlorzoxazone had previously been found to have a positive effect on eye movements in spinocerebellar ataxia type 6. Looking at the results of their experiments, they realized that a combination of chlorzoxazone and baclofen would probably be an effective treatment for ataxia over a long period. They offered this drug combination to patients, who had few adverse effects and showed improvement in their diseasesymptoms. Based on these findings, the researchers recommended that larger trials of this drug combination should be conducted and that people trying to design new drugs to treat ataxia should try to interact with the same targets as chlorzoxazone.

When this paper’s authors started their research, they wanted to know more about how ataxia changes the way that brain cells communicate with each other. Brain cells do this using a code made up of pulses of electricity. They create these pulses by controlling the movement of electrically charged atoms known as ions. The main ions that brain cells use are potassium, sodium, calcium and chloride. Cells control their movement through proteins on their surface called ion channels which allow specific types of ions to travel into or out of the cell at specific times. Different types of cells use different combinations of ion channels, which causes different types of ions to move into and out of the cell more or less easily and under different conditions. This affects how these cells communicate with each other.
For example, a cell’s “excitability” is a measure of how easy it is for that cell to send out electrical pulses. Creating these pulses depends on the right ions entering and exiting the cell at the right time in order to create one of these pulses. Multiple types of spinocerebellar ataxia seem to make it difficult for Purkinje cells, which send information out of the cerebellum, to properly control the pattern of electrical signals that they send out. This would interfere with the cerebellum’s ability to communicate with the rest of the brain. The cerebellum plays an important roll in balance, posture and general motor coordination, so miscommunication between it and the rest of the brain would account for many of the symptoms of spinocerebellar ataxias.
Earlier research had found a link between this disrupted communication and a decrease in the amount of some types of ion channels that let potassium ions into Purkinje cells. Thus, this paper’s authors wanted to see if drugs that made the remaining potassium channels work better would improve Purkinje cell communication.
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