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

An experiment was performed which examined movement planning and force transition control in six patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) during a sequence of five finger taps at either a fast (200 ms) or slow (600 ms) temporal speed. The patients acted as their own controls and performed finger taps under three task conditions: (1) where all taps had to be of the same force intensity: no stress; (2) where it was known that one of the taps had to be executed with an augmented force: stress simple reaction time (SRT); and (3) where it was not known prior to initiation which one of the taps was to be more forcefully produced: stress choice reaction time (CRT). Reaction time data revealed a between-condition effect where stress SRT was faster than stress CRT and no stress was faster than both. Under both speed conditions, the interval after the stressed tap was profoundly lengthened. It was found that the lengthening was due to increases in both lift and dwell times for the slow tapping rate. In contrast, at the fast tapping rate, proportionately more of the interval increase was due to the increase in lift time. These findings suggest that patients with Parkinson's disease, when performing under a motor program mode, have difficulty in initiating a sequence and making a transition to lighter force levels after a stressed tap.
 ...
PMID:Force transition control within a movement sequence in Parkinson's disease. 280 42

The large-scale mail questionnaire is a useful tool in epidemiological investigation and will probably come into wider use in the search for an environmental cause of Parkinson's disease (PD). To determine the validity of mail questionnaires in patients with PD, we administered a 17-item questionnaire by in-person interview, as a standard, to 68 patients (and/or a relative when necessary) and compared the results with the same questionnaire mailed at least 1 month before or after the interview. Questions in three formats requested recall of the clinical course and past environmental factors. Each patient also completed a multiple-choice physical self-assessment (a modification of four items on the Columbia Scale) immediately before seeing the neurologist, who completed the same form after the examination. Percent of patients with zero discordance between mail and interview responses averaged 52% for the nine fill-in-a-year items, 53% for the three list-generation items. Kappa statistics for the five multiple-choice items, which each offered four choices, averaged 0.67 (range 0.40-0.89). Kappa for the physical examination items, each rated on a 0-3 scale, was finger-tap 0.12, gait 0.34, tremor 0.35, and chorea 0.20. Patients' ratings tended to be more severe than neurologists' ratings. We conclude that mail surveys in PD should either be avoided or rigorously pretested for validity.
 ...
PMID:Validity of a mailed epidemiological questionnaire and physical self-assessment in Parkinson's disease. 319 62

A total of 137 healthy participants aged from 20 to 79 years, including 59 over 60 years, were examined using a finger-tapping test. The test requested the participant to respond synchronously with the right middle finger to a periodic sound train with frequencies of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 Hz (cycles/sec). Difficulty keeping the rhythmic movement at a given rate was found to be a characteristic of aging. For the participants over 30 years, the mean rate of tapping deviated towards a faster rate for the stimulus frequency at 4 or 5 Hz (hastened tap, HT). The percentage of the participants who exhibited HT increased with decade of age; 0(20s), 11(30s), 13(40s), 17(50s), 30(60s) and 29(70s). HT in aging appears similar to hastened tapping which is typically observed in patients with Parkinson's disease and may be related to extrapyramidal dysfunction. Hastened tapping in the elderly supports the hypothesis that Parkinson's disease is a model for premature aging, suggesting that HT in aging represents an extrapyramidal motor dysfunction due to the neuroanatomical and neurochemical changes in the nigro-striatal system of the aging brain.
 ...
PMID:Characteristic difficulty in rhythmic movement with aging and its relation to Parkinson's disease. 325 62

The study concerns symptoms and behavioral characteristics induced by MPTP in a 20-year-old Macaca cynomolgus fascicularis, their evolution over 7 months, and the animal's response to 1-dopa treatment. The symptoms which the animal developed include those that have been described earlier in Macaca mulatta and Saimiri sciureus, i.e., rigidity, action tremor, postural tremor, postural flexion, hypokinesia, and bradykinesia. In addition, however, the animal developed a 3.8 Hz resting tremor which in humans is pathognomonic of Parkinson's disease, as well as cogwheeling, the glabellar tap sign, drooling, impaired ability to relax, and many other symptoms. Also unlike previously described MPTP monkeys, the animal's symptoms neither improved spontaneously, nor did they remain stable shortly after MPTP injection. Instead, symptoms steadily progressed to reach a severe status 2 months after MPTP, and further progression was apparent after another 5 months. Therapeutic responses to 1-dopa required accumulation of or kindling by the 100 mg unit doses that were spaced 4 hr apart, were often organized in time as ON episodes that alternated with OFF episodes, and were associated with dyskinesias and bizarre behavior. Of particular interest is that the animal showed kinesia paradoxa which, in humans, constitutes a feature that is unique to Parkinson's disease among the extrapyramidal disorders. In addition to available evidence, the present findings validate the syndrome induced by MPTP in monkey as an animal analogue of Parkinson's disease. Taxonomic category, age, and the occurrence of shock in response to MPTP are discussed as variables that may possibly co-determine the pathology which MPTP may induce in monkey.
 ...
PMID:Symptoms and behavioral features induced by 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) in an old Java monkey [Macaca cynomolgus fascicularis (Raffles)]. 348 98

In 30 patients with Parkinson's disease, 55 patients with other neurological disorders and 25 normal subjects, both upper eyelid movements and orbicularis oculi reflexes to repetitive glabella taps were simultaneously recorded using a newly devised apparatus for the measurement of eyelid movement. Upper lid movement during the blink reflex has been thought to correspond to the late component of the two components of the orbicularis oculi reflex, and failure of habituation of the late component to repetitive stimuli has been considered to be responsible for the glabella tap sign. However, the present study showed that the eyelid lowered after the early component (R1), and habituation of the late component (R2) was recognized in 31% of subjects with the glabella tap sign. This shows that there is no direct causal relationship between the glabella tap sign and lack of the habituation of the late component.
 ...
PMID:Glabella tap sign. Is it due to a lack of R2-habituation? 405 21

To determine whether 1-tyrosine administration can enhance dopamine synthesis in humans as it does in rats, we measured levels of tyrosine and the major dopamine metabolite, homovanillic acid, in lumbar spinal fluids of 23 patients with Parkinson's disease before and during ingestion of 100 mg/kg/day of tyrosine. Nine patients took 100 mg/kg/day of probenecid in six divided doses for 24 hours prior to each spinal tap; 14 patients did not receive probenecid. L-tyrosine administration significantly increased CSF tyrosine levels in both groups of patients (p less than .01) and significantly increased homovanillic acid levels in the group of patients pretreated with probenecid (p less than .02). These data indicate that l-tyrosine administration can increase dopamine turnover in patients with disorders in which physicians wish to enhance dopaminergic neurotransmission.
 ...
PMID:Effects of oral L-tyrosine administration on CSF tyrosine and homovanillic acid levels in patients with Parkinson's disease. 617 72

Two hundred and sixty-five normal individuals and patients with clinical signs of extracranial disease, 174 patients with intracranial disease without signs of basal ganglia involvement and 126 patients with signs of basal ganglia disorders were examined clinically for the occurrence of the activation phenomenon of rigidity, the palmomental reflex and the glabella tap response. A comparison between the three groups, decade for decade, showed that the activation phenomenon was so common in the first two groups that its presence was unlikely to be the first sign of Parkinson's disease. A tendency to increasing frequency with increasing age was noted. The palmomental reflex and glabella tap response were more frequent in the last group, but also so common in the first two, that the clinical significance was marginal. No tendency to increasing occurrence with increasing age was noted.
 ...
PMID:Comparison of three primitive reflexes in neurological patients and in normal individuals. 684 21

Levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in CSF were measured in patients with Parkinson's disease (n = 14) and sex-matched controls (n = 14). One patient underwent a spinal tap before and after treatment. The mean (+/- SD) CSF GABA levels were 200 +/- 70 pmole/mL in controls and 121 +/- 52 pmole/mL in patients with Parkinson's disease. In the untreated patients with Parkinson's disease, the CSF GABA level was 95 +/- 31 pmole/mL (n = 7) and in those who were treated with levodopa and carbidopa the level was 144 +/- 53 pmole/mL (n = 8). No significant difference was seen in plasma GABA levels between the controls and patients with Parkinson's disease. The decreased GABA level in CSF, which was elevated by levodopa, supports the concept that in Parkinson's disease, the GABA-dopamine interaction in the substantia nigra may be an important compensatory mechanism counteracting the dopamine neuronal loss.
 ...
PMID:Low CSF gamma-aminobutyric acid levels in Parkinson's Disease. Effect of levodopa and carbidopa. 710 67

The motor performance of 10 patients with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) was clinically assessed with the aid of a computer assisted optoelectronic movement analysis system (Mac Reflex). We used the Posturo Locomotion Manual (PLM) method that gives a quantitative estimation of the postural, locomotor and manual performance in freely moving humans. Measurements were done before intervention, after CSF tap test and 3 months post installation of a CSF ventriculo peritoneal shunt. Comparison was made to data from 10 matched normal subjects and 10 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Shunt operation of the NPH patients and l-dopa treatment of the Parkinson patients improved the motor performance to a comparable degree. However, while the NPH patients improved the speed in the PLM test after the operation, the PD patients also improved the co-ordination after l-dopa treatment. This could indicate a different mechanism behind the improvement of motor performance in NPH and PD after intervention.
 ...
PMID:Motor performance in normal pressure hydrocephalus assessed with an optoelectronic measurement technique. 757 47

Determinations of biopterin (BP), homovanilic acid (HVA), glutamic acid (GTA), and glutamine (GT) levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) obtained through a lumbar tap were performed in 20 parkinsonian patients in different stages of evolution and without medication. In patients with motor symptoms not related to Parkinson's disease (dystonia, dyskinesia and essential tremor) (n = 4). In 7 other neurological patients subjected to spinal tap for diagnostic procedures neurotransmitters were also determined and taken as control groups. In 14 of the patients with Parkinson's disease, the symptoms were evaluated using conventional scales (UPDS, NYPDS, NWPDS, Schwab and England, and Hoehn and Yahr scale). The amplitude and the frequency of tremor were quantitatively evaluated through a single plane accelerometer Grass SP-1, akinesia was measured through reaction time to auditory stimuli, and rigidity through the speed of lineal movement. Evaluations were performed with the patient not on any medication for 1 week and repeated 1 h after the intake of 250 mg of 200/50 L-dopa/carbidopa preparation (Sinemet) and on a different day after the intake of biperiden (Akineton) 6 mg/day. Differences in neurotransmitter or metabolites levels between Parkinson's disease and control groups were determined through an independent Student's t test. Correlation between severity of symptoms in the scales and for each individual symptom measured through the quantitative tests and the levels of neurotransmitters in CSF were evaluated through the Pearson correlation analysis test. Modifications in the motor performance after administration of Sinemet and Akineton, and the levels of neurotransmitters were indirectly determined. RESULTS. (1) There were significant differences between the levels of BP and GT in patients with Parkinson's disease and control groups, (2) lower GTA levels correlated with more severe rigidity and akinesia, and with the best response to the administration of L-dopa and may be an important marker for prognosis, and (3) lower levels of GT correlated with least akinesia, but not with tremor, which may indicate that the akinesia depends on other biochemical abnormalities besides dopamine depletion.
 ...
PMID:Neurotransmitter levels in cerebrospinal fluid in relation to severity of symptoms and response to medical therapy in Parkinson's disease. 763 Oct 94


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next >>