BQCA (benzyl quinolone carboxylic acid) is an experimental drug that acts as a potent and selective positive

allosteric modulator In pharmacology and biochemistry, allosteric modulators are a group of substances that bind to a receptor to change that receptor's response to stimuli. Some of them, like benzodiazepines or alcohol, function as psychoactive drugs. The site that a ...

of the

Muscarinic acetylcholine receptor M1 The muscarinic acetylcholine receptor M1, also known as the cholinergic receptor, muscarinic 1, is a muscarinic receptor that in humans is encoded by the ''CHRM1'' gene. It is localized to 11q13. This receptor is found mediating slow excitato ...

. It was one of the first M1-selective positive allosteric modulators to be discovered, originally developed as a potential treatment agent for cognitive symptoms of

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

, and while BQCA itself was not adopted for clinical use due to its poor side effect profile it is still used in research, and has led to the discovery of a wide range of structurally related M1 PAMs.

References

Experimental drugs Carboxylic acids Quinolines 4-Methoxyphenyl compounds {{pharm-stub