Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0030567 (Parkinson's disease)
 63,064 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The trigemino-facial reflex was studied in 7 patients affected by Huntington's chorea and in 10 patients affected by Parkinson's disease. The results show a different behavior of the habituation phenomenon in the two groups of patients: it is enhanced in the choreic and abolished in the parkinsonian patients. The main changes concern the time course of the second phase (the first inhibitory phase) of the reflex excitability cycle, in fact, the inhibitory phase appears very pronounced and prolonged in huntingtonian patients and reduced or abolished in parkinsonian patients. Some pathophysiological mechanisms involved in the control of the trigeminofacial reflex excitability are discussed with particular regard to the role of the hemispheric structures.
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PMID:Study of the excitability cycle of the blink reflex in Huntington's chorea. 13 47

Antibodies reacting with neuronal cytoplasmic antigens present in normal human caudate and subthalamic nuclei were detected in 37 of 80 probands afflicted with Huntington's disease (HD). IgG antibodies were detected by immunofluorescence using frozen sections of unfixed normal human and rat brain. Specificity of IgG binding was confirmed using pepsin F(ab')2 fragments of IgG isolated from positive sera. In vitro complement fixation of IgG antibody was detected in 22 of 31 sera tested. Neuronal cytoplasmic antigens reacting with positive HD sera were diminished after trypsin or RNAase treatment of tissue sections but were not removed by DNAase, neuraminidase, EDTA, or dithiothreitol treatment. Antibody staining of neurons could be removed after absorption with isolated caudate nucleus neurons or by using perchloroacetic acid extracts of caudate nucleus. Prevalence of antibody reacting with neuronal cytoplasm was 3% in 60 normal controls and 6% among a wide variety of patients with diverse neurological disorders. However, one-third of 33 patients with Parkinson's disease showed presence of antineuronal antibody. Among patients with HD, a significant association was noted between duration of clinical disease greater than 7 yr and titers of antibody of 1:2 or greater (P less than 0.001). When 115 family members of HD probands were tested, 30% of unaffected spouses showed presence of antineuronal antibody. 23.2% of first-degree relatives at risk for developing HD was also positive (P less than 0.001). 10.5% of second-degree relatives showed presence of antineuronal antibody. These data may support an environmental or infectious factor somehow involved in the ultimate expression of HD.
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PMID:Antibodies to human caudate nucleus neurons in Huntington's chorea. 14 Jan 83

Comparison of the properties of blood platelets and serotonergic synaptosomes suggests that the human platelet can serve as an appropriate model for the transport, metabolism, and release of serotonin (5-HT) by CNS serotonergic neurons. The study of blood 5-HT levels and platelet 5-HT pharmacodynamics in patients with a variety of psychiatric and neurologic disorders has generated interesting leads into possible abnormalities of CNS 5-HT neurons in these patients. This article reviews the experimental evidence, which uses the human platelet model to investigate neurotransmitter-related abnormalities in Down syndrome, mental retardation, infantile autism, hyperactivity syndromes (minimal brain dysfunction), schizophrenia, affective disorders, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Parkinson disease, Huntington chorea, and migraine headaches.
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PMID:The human platelet. A diagnostic and research tool for the study of biogenic amines in psychiatric and neurologic disorders. 14 Jun 32

The habituation index is a quantitative expression of the ability of the orbicularis oculi (blink reflex) to adapt to a series of electrical stimuli applied to the supraorbital region. This parameter has been studied in a group of normal control subjects, and the results compared with those in cases of idiopathic and drug-induced Parkinsonism, states of dementia, and dyskinesias such as Huntington's chorea and senile chorea. Patients with Huntington's chorea showed a tendency for the reflex to habituate readily in contrast to patients with dementia caused by cortical atrophy and those with Parkinson's disease. Younger patients with Huntington's chorea had indices within the normal range. It seems unlikely that this test will prove of value in the detection of clinically unaffected relatives. Where dementia was associated with a reversible intracranial lesion, the habituation index was studied before and after treatment. Failure of habituation in this condition appears to be due to the release of a primitive protective reflex.
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PMID:Habituation of the orbicularis oculi reflex in dementia and dyskinetic states. 15 Nov 27

Huntington's chorea is a dominantly inherited disorder that usually leads to involuntary movements in the third or fourth decade. On gross pathological examination of the post-mortem brain there is a marked atrophy of the caudate nucleus and putamen. Histological examination reveals cell loss in most regions of the brain, although the hippocampus is usually remarkably free of any abnormalities. Studies to detect a biochemical defect in patients with chorea have been largely unrewarding. Since chorea appears to be the clinical counterpart of Parkinson's disease a number of investigations on dopamine metabolism have been carried out by measuring dopamine in the post-mortem choreic brain, and HVA, a metabolite of dopamine, in the CSF of patients. Most studies have found the dopamine concentrations to be normal or sometimes decreased and the activity of the biosynthetic enzyme for dopamine, tyrosine hydroxylase, is normal. The discovery that the inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA, and the biosynthetic enzyme GAD are greatly decreased in the post-mortem choreic brain provides some rational explanation for the uncontrolled movements in this disorder. The other significant abnormality found in many, but not all, choreic post-mortem brains has been a decrease in the biosynthetic enzyme for acetylcholine, choline acetyl transferase. The evidence that GABA receptors are intact in choreic brain provides an added stimulus for the development of useful GABA-mimetic drugs. For the ultimate eradication of this distressing disorder, however, a search must continue for the primary defect in order that this can be detected before the onset of symptoms, or hopefully in amniotic fluid.
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PMID:Neurochemical findings in Huntington's chorea. 15 97

Spasticity in man is presented as a disinhibition of spinal cord mechanisms, the responses to stretch depending on the interaction of the reflex effects of group Ia with those of group II afferent fibres. The reflex responses to muscle stretch and shortening in Parkinson's disease do not depend on an abnormality of spinal reflex mechanisms. The superimposition of physiological tremor or alternating tremor in rigidity produces the classical cog-wheel sensation. The phase lead of the action tonic stretch reflex was found to be reduced in patients with athetosis and cerebellar disease, thus diminishing damping of unwanted movements. The more complex transmission characteristics of the action tonic stretch reflex of normal man are absent in patients with spasticity and cerebellar lesions, presumably due to interference with long-loop pathways. In normal subjects gain of the reflex loop increases with voluntary contraction but in spasticity gain remains high irrespective of contraction level.
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PMID:A physiological approach to motor disorders. 15 18

Seventeen patients with Parkinson's disease have been compared with 8 normal individuals by biopsy of either the biceps brachii or quadriceps femoris muscles. All biopsies were investigated by enzyme histochemistry. With 13 patients, as well as all controls, scanning electron microscopy with X-ray microanalysis was employed on cryo-sections adjacent to those prepared for light microscopy. Thus, the elemental composition of single muscle fibres was obtained and could be related to histochemical fibre types. Fibre type analysis on the diseased material, based on differential stainability for alkali- and acid-stable ATPase, showed a normal type I and type IIA fibre frequency. A mild type IIB dominance at the expense of type IIA fibres was regarded as a significant deviation from normal. A slight to moderate muscle atrophy affected type IIB fibres almost exclusively. Normal content of sulphur and phosphorus was detected in type I and type IIA Fibres but a lowered sulphur content was obvious in type IIB fibres, especially in the atrophic ones, which also exhibited an increase in phosphorus content. The shift in fibre composition from IIA to IIB, the type IIB fibre atrophy and the change in sulphur and phosphorus content of type IIB fibres are interpreted as signs of a disuse which preferentially affects fast twitch type IIB motor units. These presumably have the highest threshold for activation under pathological conditions characterized by increased muscular tone and difficulties in the performance of rapid and strong voluntary movements.
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PMID:Sulphur and phosphorus content in relation to fibre composition and atrophy of skeletal muscle in patients with Parkinson's disease. 15 28

A group of diseases of the brain characterized by dementia have been discussed. The pathologic features of each were described and illustrated. It seems that, in summary, several points merit emphasis. First of all, as more people survive to the seventh, eighth, and ninth decades, the most common dementia, senile Alzheimer's disease, will become a more significant public health problem. Second, while at the present time there is no successful therapy available, there are some glimmerings of hope on the horizon. The discovery of the agent of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease seems to have placed us on the fringe of a whole new series of advances. A novel type of disease agent awaits characterization and definition, and there are hints that similar agents could be responsible for the development of the degenerative diseases, perhaps in conjunction with environmental toxins and in the medium of a permissive genetic background. In the case of Huntington's chorea, it seems reasonable that a pharmacologic agent could be found to control the symptoms such as L-dopa therapy has done for patients with Parkinson's disease. It may develop, however, that such an agent will control the choreiform movements but will not influence the dementing condition.
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PMID:Pathology of dementia. 16 30

With respect to [3H]GABA-binding in material prepared from human post-mortem brain, the following observations have been made: (1) The [3H]GABA binding site in the cerebellum has the pharmacological characteristics of the physiological GABA-receptor observed in other species. Together with the post-mortem stability exhibited for [3H]GABA-binding, this provides an approach for determining the functional state of the GABA-receptor in various disease states; (2) In Parkinson's disease [3H]GABA-binding in the substantia nigra is significantly decreased whereas that in the putamen and caudate nucleus is unaltered. The former finding likely indicates that GABA binding sites (receptors) occur on nigral dopaminergic cell bodies and/or dendrites. The latter finding may signify that relatively few of the striatal [3H]GABA binding sites occur on dopaminergic nerve terminals in the human caudate or putamen; (3) In Huntington's disease [3H]GABA binding was decreased in the caudate nucleus and putamen, in parallel wih the massive cell loss and gliosis observed in this condition. Membranes prepared from cerebellar tissue of these patients possessed an increased affinity for [3H]GABA-binding; (4) Pre-treatment of cerebellar membranes from control brains with Triton-X-100 (0.02%) or phospholipase-C (0.001 units) results in kinetic changes very similar to those observed in Huntington's brains. In contrast, such treatment was virtually without effect on the IC50 or KD for [3H]GABA on cerebellar membranes prepared from Huntington's brains; (5) These results imply that a phospholipid, possibly related to phosphoglycerolethanolamine, is altered in the membrranes of Huntington's patients and that this phospholipid normally has a role in controlling accessibility to the GABA-receptor.
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PMID:Sodium-independent, high-affinity binding of [3H]gamma-aminobutyric acid in human neurological disorders. 16 Jan 92

The characteristic oily skin in individuals with parkinsonism has long been observed by clinicians. The oiliness seems to be associated with periods when the disease is most active. This seborrhea has been observed particularly in post-encephalitic parkinsonism, as well as in idiopathic paralysis agitans. It also occurs in phenothiazine-induced parkinsonism.
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PMID:The skin in Parkinson's disease. 16 45


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