The disease heterogeneity and little therapeutic progress in neurodegenerative diseases justify the need for novel and effective drug discovery approaches. Drug repurposing is an emerging approach that reinvigorates the classical drug discovery method by divulging new therapeutic uses of existing drugs. The common biological background and inverse tuning between cancer and neurodegeneration give weight to the conceptualization of repurposing of anticancer drugs as novel therapeutics. Many studies are available in the literature, which highlights the success story of anticancer drugs as repurposed therapeutics. Among them, kinase inhibitors, developed for various oncology indications evinced notable neuroprotective effects in neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, we shed light on the salient role of multiple protein kinases in neurodegenerative disorders. We also proposed a feasible explanation of the action of kinase inhibitors in neurodegenerative disorders with more attention towards neurodegenerative disorders. The problem of neurotoxicity associated with some anticancer drugs is also highlighted. Our review encourages further research to better encode the hidden potential of anticancer drugs with the aim of developing prospective repurposed drugs with no toxicity for neurodegenerative disorders.

神经退行性疾病的疾病异质性和很少的治疗进展证明需要新的和有效的药物发现方法。药物再利用是一种新兴方法，它通过揭示现有药物的新治疗用途来重振经典药物发现方法。癌症和神经退行性疾病之间的共同生物学背景和逆向调整赋予了将抗癌药物重新利用为新疗法的概念化。文献中有许多研究，这些研究强调了抗癌药物作为重新利用的疗法的成功故事。其中，为各种肿瘤适应症开发的激酶抑制剂在神经退行性疾病中表现出显着的神经保护作用。在这次审查中，我们阐明了多种蛋白激酶在神经退行性疾病中的重要作用。我们还提出了激酶抑制剂在神经退行性疾病中的作用的可行解释，更多地关注神经退行性疾病。与一些抗癌药物相关的神经毒性问题也被强调。我们的审查鼓励进一步研究以更好地编码抗癌药物的潜在潜力，目的是开发对神经退行性疾病没有毒性的预期再利用药物。