CONTEXT

Neurotrophic factors have been shown to possess strong neuroprotective and neurorestaurative properties in neurodegenerative disease. However the issues to control their delivery into the lesioned areas of the brain and their surgical administration, linked to their inability to cross the blood brain barrier, are many drawbacks responsible of undesirable side effects limiting their clinical use. A strategy implying the use of neurotrophin-like small molecules could provide an interesting therapeutic alternative avoiding neurotrophin administration and its side effects. In an attempt to develop drugs mimicking endogenous neurotrophic factors, we have designed and synthesized low molecular weight molecules that exhibit neuroprotective and neuritogenic properties.