Updates How Riluzole Can Help to Devise New Strategies and Better Understanding of Pathological Processes Underlying

Rilutek®; Fig. 1) is one of the few drugs licensed to treat a neurodegenerative disease, and, as such, it has attracted considerable interest for its potentially wider therapeutic applications. Originally synthesized by researchers at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer (Antony, France), riluzole was first described for its anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, and anesthetic properties (Wokke 1996). Clinical interest in this drug dates back to the mid-1990s when, in the United States, it became available for treating motor neurone disease (MND) (Miller and others 1996). MDN (which includes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [ALS], or Lou Gehrig’s disease) causes progressive damage and cell death of lower motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain stem and upper motor neurons in the motor cortex (Shaw 1999). Riluzole is the only drug currently license