Re: Antidepressants May Help Fight Parkinson's Disease

[ariela <a_blum@xxxxxxxxxx>]

and ditto this report (the website address from which it's quoted)....
thanks,
ariela

----    Judith Richards <judithr@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> September 27, 2001
> Antidepressants May Help Fight Parkinson's Disease
>
> NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In preliminary findings that could give
> new
> hope to patients with Parkinson's disease, researchers have discovered
> that some antidepressants may block the release of a key brain chemical
> that can damage nerves and contribute to the declines in brain and
> motor
> coordination characteristic of the disorder.
>
> Parkinson's disease is a progressive and irreversible disorder that
> occurs when brain cells that produce the chemical dopamine begin to
> die.
> It can also occur when the proteins that transport dopamine between
> nerves in a certain region of the brain malfunction, allowing the
> chemical to spill into gaps between neurons, where it damages the
> nerves.
>
> In the current study, Dr. Isabelle M. Mintz and colleagues from Boston
> University in Massachusetts looked at dendrites--the branch-like
> extensions that nerve cells use to communicate with other neurons--in
> the substantia nigra, an area of the brain associated with Parkinson's
> disease, in rats.
>
> According to their report in the September 28th issue of Science,
> certain stimuli caused the dopamine-carrying proteins in dendrites
> to
> malfunction. Rather than picking up dopamine, these proteins leaked
> the
> chemical into the space between neurons, causing damage to the nerves,
> the investigators found.
>
> But a compound that inhibits the proteins that transport dopamine
> prevented the spillage, the authors note, indicating that similar
> compounds, such as some antidepressants, might have the same effect
> in
> the early stages of Parkinson's disease.
>
> ``This suggests that some widely used antidepressants that inhibit
> the
> dopamine transporter may benefit patients in the early stages of
> Parkinson's disease,'' Mintz and colleagues conclude.
>
> SOURCE: Science 2001;293:2465-2470.
>  Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited.
>                                Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc.
> --
> Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
> judithr@xxxxxxxx
>                         EASE THE BURDEN
>                                 FIND A CURE
>
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