Lithium chloride (LiCl) has shown neuroprotective effects through glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) inhibition in a variety of central nervous system diseases.
Lithium chloride, a classical treatment for bipolar disorder, has shown neuroprotective effects through glycogen synthase kinase-3β inhibition in a variety of central nervous system diseases, including stroke.
Our findings indicate that regulation of glycogen content via Cav-1/PTEN/AKT/GSK-3β pathway by the three anti-bipoar drugs may be responsible for therapeutic effects of these drugs, and Cav-1 is an important signal element that may contribute to pathogenesis of various CNS diseases and regulation of its gene expression may be one of the underlying mechanisms of drug action for antibipolar drugs and antidepressants currently in clinical use.
Thus, development of GSK-3β radiotracers for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is of paramount importance, because such a noninvasive imaging technique would allow better understanding of the link between the activity of GSK-3β and central nervous system disorders in living organisms, and it would enable early detection of the enzyme's aberrant activity.