M1 muscarinic agonist

AF710B, now developed by Anavex Life Sciences as ANAVEX3-71, is an experimental drug that acts on two targets at once: it activates the M1 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor from an allosteric site, amplifying acetylcholine's own effect, and it is a sigma-1 receptor agonist. In Alzheimer's-model mice and rats, doses of 10 µg/kg a day improved memory and reduced amyloid, tau phosphorylation and glial inflammation, and in rats the benefits outlasted the end of treatment by weeks. In people it has been through a single-dose phase 1 study and a 71-person phase 2 trial in schizophrenia that met its safety endpoint but released no symptom or cognition results.