PET studies and motor complications in Parkinson's disease.

D J Brooks

Journal: Trends in neurosciences 2001;23(10 Suppl):S101-8

PMID: 11052227

Full Text on Elsevier Science View on PubMed

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with motor complications show a greater reduction in putamen [18F]dopa uptake on positron emission tomography (PET) compared with sustained responders to L-dopa, although individual ranges overlap considerably. This implies that, although loss of putamen dopamine storage predisposes motor complications in PD, it cannot be the only factor determining timing of onset. Additional PET studies suggest that loss of striatal dopamine storage capacity along with pulsatile exposure to exogenous L-dopa results in pathologically raised synaptic dopamine levels and deranged basal ganglia opioid transmission.This, rather than altered dopamine receptor binding, then causes inappropriate overactivity of basal ganglia-frontal projections, resulting in breakthrough involuntary movements.

Address: MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College School of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK.

DOI: 10.1016/s1471-1931(00)00016-1

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MeSH Terms: Antiparkinson Agents, Brain, Corpus Striatum, Dihydroxyphenylalanine, Dyskinesia, Drug-Induced, Fluorine Radioisotopes, Humans, Levodopa, Neural Pathways, Opioid Peptides, Parkinson Disease, Pulse Therapy, Drug, Putamen, Receptors, Opioid, Tomography, Emission-Computed