Target the Heart: A New Axis of Alzheimer's Disease Prevention

Cyclosporine A and other calcineurin inhibitors have been identified as prospective treatments for preventing Alzheimer's disease. We previously found that calcineurin inhibitors elicit a unique behavioral profile in zebrafish larvae, characterized by increased activity, acoustic hyperexcitability, and reduced visually guided behaviors. Screening a large library of FDA-approved compounds using Z-LaP Tracker revealed that some heart medications produce a similar behavioral profile, suggesting these drugs may exert calcineurin-inhibitor-like effects relevant to prevent-ing or ameliorating Alzheimer's disease.

Screening a large library of FDA-approved drugs using Z-LaP Tracker, a neural network model, revealed a cluster of 65 drugs demonstrating a cyclosporine A-like behavioral profile. Fourteen of these drugs were heart medications, including angiotensin receptor blockers, beta blockers, al-pha-adrenergic receptor antagonists, and a statin.

Dual administration of the heart medications with cyclosporine A in Z-LaP Tracker revealed synergistic effects: lower doses of each heart medication could be delivered in conjunction with a lower dose of cyclosporine A to evoke a similar or larger behavioral effect than higher doses of each drug independently. Other studies have shown that many of these heart medica-tions drugs directly or indirectly inhibit the calcineurin-NFAT pathway, like cyclo-sporine A, providing a potential mechanism.

Co-administering a low dose of cyclosporine A with select cardiac drugs could be a potentially effective treatment strategy for preventing Alzheimer's disease occurrence and simultaneously treating cardiovascular dysfunction, while mitigating the side effects associated with higher doses of cyclosporine A. Given that heart disease precedes Alzheimer's disease in many patients, physicians may be able to create a treatment regimen that addresses both con-ditions. Our results suggest that a calcineurin inhibitor combined with simvastatin, irbesartan, cilostazol, doxazosin, or nebivolol is the most promising candidate for future exploration.