Interaction of Nootropic Drugs with Neurotransmitter Enzyme Acetylcholinesterase: An Insilico Approach: A Review

Abstract

Nootropic drugs are the class of drugs or supplements that are claimed to enhance cognitive functions, specifically executive functions, memory and creativity in healthy individual. They are sometime referred as cognitive enhancers or smart drugs as they are associated with memory improvement functioning. Some of them are well known drugs and clinically approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). All metabolic reactions are purely dependent on enzymatic actions as they play a very important role in regulating and maintaining most of the biological responses and various processes. An enzyme Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) seems to play an essential role in the conduction of cholinergic brain synapses and neuromuscular junctions. There have been different nootropic drugs identified and approved for curing neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer, Parkinson and Huntington's disease. Their binding efficiency and energy have been well studied an established by using the in-silico docking tools. There are different docking tools available today for analysis of molecules such as PyRx, Auto dock and schrodinger suite. The advent of these tools is being widely used by the pharmaceutical industries for the virtual screening of the formulated drugs against the desired target molecule. It has made the drug formulation process more time efficient and cost effective. Thus, an in-silico approach has been widely accepted for drug discovery and its design.