MS medication Fampyra may help people with poor working memory
Oral Fampyra approved to improve walking ability in adults with MS
Fampyra (fampridine), an oral medication that’s approved to improve walking ability in adults with multiple sclerosis (MS), may also help some people with poor working memory, according to a new study.
Working memory refers to a person’s ability to keep small pieces of information at the forefront of their mind for immediate mental use, like remembering a code long enough to type it in or keeping track of what’s being said during a conversation.
“[Fampyra] doesn’t improve working memory in everyone. But it could be a treatment option for those with reduced working memory,” Andreas Papassotiropoulos, MD, PhD, co-author of the study at the University of Basel in Switzerland, said in a university news story.
The study, “The effect of fampridine on working memory: a randomized controlled trial based on a genome-guided repurposing approach,” was published in Molecular Psychiatry.
Working memory is essential for human cognition, allowing people to integrate information and use it in the short term. People with MS, as well as those with psychiatric conditions like depression and schizophrenia, often struggle with working memory.
Fampyra is designed to boost conduction of electrical signals along nerve cells
Merz Therapeutics’ Fampyra, which was previously developed by Acorda Therapeutics and is sold as Ampyra (dalfampridine) in the U.S., is designed to boost the conduction of electrical signals along nerve cells, improving communication from damaged nerves.
Although approved to aid walking ability in MS, Fampyra was found in the new study to target a protein whose coding gene is robustly associated with schizophrenia. That protein was also linked with working memory performance in a group of healthy people, indicating that the medication may be repurposed to improve this type of memory.
To put that idea to the test, the researchers conducted a small clinical trial (NCT04652557) involving 43 healthy young adults. Participants were randomly assigned to receive Fampyra (10 mg twice daily) or a placebo for 3.5 days. Then, after a washout period of at least eight days, those originally given Fampyra were given a placebo, and vice versa.
Before receiving Fampyra, and then after each treatment round, participants underwent a standardized assessment of working memory. The main goal was to see if working memory had improved after a few days of Fampyra treatment.
While no significant change was observed in the overall group of participants, those who had poorer working memory at the start of the study did experience statistically significant improvements after treatment.
“We observed a significant negative correlation between baseline WM [working memory] performance and the drug effect on the primary outcome measure: lower baseline performance was associated with better WM performance after repeated intake of [Fampyra] compared to placebo,” the scientists wrote.
Spurred by these promising findings in healthy young adults, the researchers are now hoping to test whether Fampyra treatment could help improve working memory in people who struggle with it.
“Together with researchers from the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel (UPK), we’re planning studies to test the efficacy of [Fampyra] in schizophrenia and depression,” said Dominique de Quervain, MD, study co-author at the University of Basel.
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