[Promoting the "Revitalization of Healthy Life Expectancy" with the Town of Anamizu].

The town of Anamizu in Housu District, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the northern part of the Noto Peninsula, has 8600 residents of whom 45.4% are 65 years or older, making it a region with an aging population. A project was launched to "make Anamizu a town known for the good health and long life" of its citizens. The project involved, among other things, health classes run by health outreach workers. The local government of Anamizu enlisted the participation of local pharmacists, by requesting that the Anamizu group of the northern Noto chapter of the Ishikawa Prefecture Pharmacists Association (comprising seven pharmacies) conduct health classes. The pharmacies within the specified group collaborated to hold 17 classes in 17 areas within six months, starting from October 2016. They conducted the health classes and held periodic meetings to confirm class topics and to standardize the responses to questions from the participants. In all, 258 residents joined the health classes, and the Anamizu pharmacist group received requests to hold more classes in 2017, based on positive feedback. The strong relationship among the pharmacies in the Anamizu group was one factor in the success of this project, executed in cooperation with the Department of Health Promotion. The shared goals of the pharmacies while tackling various projects-for example, in running a booth representing the Anamizu group at health festivals-enhanced their collaborative activities. The Anamizu group plans to conduct various other community activities in the future to improve the QOL of local residents.

Effects of a novel metabotropic glutamate receptor 7 negative allosteric modulator, 6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-5-methyl-3-pyridin-4-ylisoxazonolo[4,5-c]pyridin-4(5H)-one (MMPIP), on the central nervous system in rodents.

We recently identified 6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-5-methyl-3-pyridin-4-ylisoxazolo[4,5-c]pyridin-4(5H)-one (MMPIP), the first allosteric metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) 7 receptor-selective negative allosteric modulator. In this study, we examined the in vivo pharmacological effects of MMPIP on the central nervous system. MMPIP was distributed into the brain after systemic administration in both mice and rats. Pharmacokinetic study revealed that the half-life of MMPIP in circulation was about 1h in rats. Results of various behavioral studies revealed that MMPIP impaired non-spatial and spatial cognitive performances in the object recognition test and the object location test in mice, respectively. In rats, MMPIP increased time to complete the task in the 8-arm radial maze test without increasing error. In addition to impairing cognition, MMPIP decreased social interaction with reduction of line crossing in rats, while MMPIP had no effects on locomotor activity in rats and mice, rota-rod performance in mice, prepulse inhibition in rats, maternal separation-induced ultrasonic vocalization in rat pups, stress-induced hyperthermia in mice, or the tail suspension test in mice. No analgesic effects of MMPIP were detected in either the tail immersion test or formalin test in mice. MMPIP did not alter the threshold for induction of seizures by electrical shock or pentylenetetrazole in mice. These findings suggest that blockade of mGlu(7) receptors by MMPIP may modulate both non-spatial and spatial cognitive functions without non-selective inhibitory effects on the central nervous system.