Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by repetitive and stereotyped behaviors as well as difficulties with social interaction and communication. According to reports for prevalence rates of ASD, approximately 1~2% of children worldwide have been diagnosed with ASD. Although there are a couple of FDA (Food and Drug Administration)—approved drugs for ASD treatment such as aripiprazole and risperidone, they are efficient for alleviating aggression, hyperactivity, and self-injury but not the core symptoms. Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) as a neurotransmitter plays a crucial role in the early neurodevelopmental stage. In particular, 5-HT has been known to regulate a variety of neurobiological processes including neurite outgrowth, dendritic spine morphology, shaping neuronal circuits, synaptic transmission, and synaptic plasticity. Given the roles of serotonergic systems, the 5-HT receptors (5-HTRs) become emerging as potential therapeutic targets in the ASD. In this review, we will focus on the recent development of small molecule modulators of 5-HTRs as therapeutic targets for the ASD treatment.

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the progressive degeneration of the function of the central nervous system or peripheral nervous system and the decline of cognition and memory abilities. The dysfunctions of the cognitive and memory battery are closely related to inhibitions of neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and brain-derived cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) to associate with the cholinergic system and long-term potentiation. Vitis vinifera, the common grapevine, is viewed as the important dietary source of stilbenoids, particularly the widely-studied monomeric resveratrol to be used as a natural compound with wide-ranging therapeutic benefits on neurodegenerative diseases. Here we found that ampelopsin A is a major compound in V. vinifera and it has neuroprotective effects on experimental animals. Bath application of ampelopsin A (10 ng/µL) restores the long-term potentiation (LTP) impairment induced by scopolamine (100 μM) in hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses. Based on these results, we administered the ampelopsin A (10 ng/µL, three times a week) into the third ventricle of the brain in C57BL/6 mice for a month. Chronic administration of ampelopsin A into the brain ameliorated cognitive memory-behaviors in mice given scopolamine (0.8 mg/kg, i.p.). Studies of mice’s hippocampi showed that the response of ampelopsin A was responsible for the restoration of the cholinergic deficits and molecular signal cascades via BDNF/CREB pathways. In conclusion, the central administration of ampelopsin A contributes to increasing neurocognitive and neuroprotective effects on intrinsic neuronal excitability and behaviors, partly through elevated BDNF/CREB-related signaling.

Designing drug-like molecules that satisfy multiple objectives-such as high binding affinity, synthesizability, and drug-likeness-poses a complex global optimization problem over an astronomically large chemical space. Existing deep learning-based molecular generative models often treat this task as distribution modeling, relying on atom-level autoregressive actions with less consideration of explicit optimization feedback. Consequently, they frequently generate invalid structures, converge to local optima, or produce synthetically infeasible candidates. Here, we introduce Synthesizable Hierarchical Action-space Reinforcement learning for Pareto optimization (SHARP), a molecular generator that addresses these limitations via a fragment-based hierarchical action space and reinforcement learning. SHARP ensures synthetic accessibility by applying action masks guided by a pretrained Synthesizability Estimation Model (SEM). The reinforcement learning (RL) policy is trained using a composite reward function integrating docking scores, pharmacophore matching, and solvent accessibility to generate functionally relevant and experimentally tractable molecules. Furthermore, across four lead optimization tasks-fragment growing, linker design, scaffold hopping, and side chain decoration-on a diverse receptor set, SHARP consistently outperforms prior methods in producing molecules at high affinity with reasonable synthesizability. These results demonstrate that reinforcement learning with a chemically intuitive action space design can be an effective solution to the optimization challenges in AI-driven drug discovery, offering a robust framework for rational molecular design in structure-based applications.

Photocatalyst-free radical conjugate addition to chromones via EDA complexes yields immunosuppressive 2,2-disubstituted chroman-4-ones under mild conditions.

Biphenylyl‐N‐ethylethanamines, novel 5‐HT₇R agonists synthesized from 4‐chloro‐3‐iodobenaldehyde, activate the Gs signaling pathway. Among derivatives, compounds 4c and 4f showed potent 5‐HT₇R agonism, with EC₅₀ values of 89 and 70 nM, respectively, in cAMP assays. Western blot analysis confirmed dose‐ and time‐dependent ERK phosphorylation, with 4c and 4f inducing sustained pERK expression (14.5‐ and 11.4‐fold at 60 min) compared to 5‐HT (4.0‐fold), indicating prolonged signaling. Compound 4f exhibited acceptable drug‐like properties, including minimal CYP inhibition and moderate microsomal stability. These findings highlight the pharmacological potential of 4f as a 5‐HT₇R modulator, warranting further in vivo studies to explore its therapeutic applications.