News Releases & Research Results Development of a drug candidate that specifically acts on a “switch” in the brain - Fast-acting therapy without any side effects for psychiatric and neurological diseases -

The results of international collaborative research conducted by Group leader Takafumi Minamimoto of the Department of Functional Brain Imaging, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology; Director Takakazu Yumoto of the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University; and Professor Jin Nakahara of University of North Carolina, Mount Sinai Medical University, and Department of Neurology, Keio University School of Medicine.

• An agonist, deschloroclozapine (DCZ), which specifically acts on an artificial receptor that serves as a “switch” in the brain, was developed.
• DCZ was effective even at an about 1/100 dose, compared with conventional agonists. When administered systemically, DCZ successfully altered the memory functions of monkeys in a repeated manner by turning off a “switch” in the frontal lobe, as a world’s first.
• The results of this research should facilitate the understanding of the pathology of psychiatric and neurological diseases and the development of safe and fast-acting therapy.

This program was conducted with the support of the Strategic Research Program for Brain Sciences by AMED.

The results of this research project were published online in Nature Neuroscience on July 7.

Nagai Y., et al. Deschloroclozapine, a potent and selective chemogenetic actuator enables rapid neuronal and behavioral modulations in mice and monkeys Nature Neuroscience
DOI：10.1038/s41593-020-0661-3