Chelerythrine Indications

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disease affects around 1% of the U.S. population that is above 18 years of age, which amounts to approximately 2 million people. The illness is profoundly debilitating, cycling victims from states of delusional mania to catastrophic depression. The manic phase presents with disruptions in cognitive functions including loss of memory, grandiose delusions and hallucinations. Affected persons become hyperactive, insomniac and unable to inhibit inappropriate speech and behavior. The depression phase also includes cognitive impairments including disturbed thoughts and suicidal tendencies.

While a person's behavior can be severely altered by the illness, the physical alterations in brain physiology, structure and biochemistry are subtle when compared to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease or epilepsy. This lack of overt and consistent pathology coupled with only weak genetic factors has made the identification of disease's etiology difficult. Additionally, bipolar disease affects almost exclusively higher order brain function - emotional and cognitive aspects of behavior and these functionalities are only expressed in a robust way in humans and non-human primates. This latter factor has made modeling the illness in rodents and simpler organisms nearly impossible. Currently there is no cure for the illness and treatments are largely palliative and carry significant side effects.

Largely due to a lack of adequate animal models, drugs for bipolar disease have exclusively arisen from serendipity. The drugs most prescribed to treat bipolar disease, lithium, valproate, and carbamazepine, were discovered anecdotally. Valproate and carbamazepine are very old anti-convulsants, and lithium was developed in the 1800's to treat gout. After the clinical experience with valproate and carbamazepine, virtually all anticonvulsants are being used to treat bipolar disease.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a disorder in thought process, that affects approximately two million Americans. The disease often strikes in the 20's or early 30's and is characterized by delusions, hallucinations and inappropriate thoughts. In many cases paranoia and suspicion consumes the victim consciousness. There are acute psychotic phases in which the persons thought process is severely disrupted and the person is unable to determine what is real and what is imagined. Hallucinations often include voices describing conspiracies directed against the victim. The disease is severely debilitating and only one in five victims achieve complete control.

There is growing realization that cognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia. There are consistent, and at times severe impairments in working memory, slowed mental flexibility and difficulties in preparedness. These deficits appear as a reduced ability to plan daily activities, respond flexibly to changes in expectations. There also appears significant reductions in long-term memory. The new generation of anti psychotics show some activity in treating cognitive impairment but generally do not significantly reduce the practical effects of the impairment. Older anti psychotic treatments show less activity in treating the cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia. At least 2 million Americans suffer from the disease.