Williams syndrome, Boaz Barak: “So we will test the drug that improves cognitive functions for the first time on humans”

In two separate Italian conferences a few months ago the professor Boaz Baraka 41-year-old scientist who heads the neurogenetics laboratory at Tel Aviv University’s School of Psychological Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience, illustrated his studies on a drug, clemastine, a low-cost over-the-counter antihistamine which, if taken, it would have the potential to improve cognitive, motor and behavioral functions in people with Williams syndrome: it would act on the reconstitution of myelin, the substance that makes up the sheath of neurons and allows the passage of electrical impulses along the nervous system and which , as discovered in Barak’s lab, tapers markedly in individuals with SW, creating neural dysfunctions of various…