BRAIN CELL DAMAGE UNDERLYING GULF WAR SYNDROME CAUSES
ABNORMAL
BRAIN DOPAMINE PRODUCTION, STUDY SHOWS

DALLAS - Sept. 14, 2000 - In a study released today,
researchers
say they have found a strong link between brain cell loss on
the
left side of the brain in sick Gulf War veterans and
abnormal
over-production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter chemical
important
in such conditions as degenerative brain diseases.

The UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas study,
published in
the American Medical Association's Archives of Neurology,
links
brain cell loss in the left basal ganglia of sick Gulf War
veterans with out-of-control production of a brain
neurotransmitter chemical called dopamine. With fewer total
brain
cells, the remaining dopamine-producing cells become
over-responsive and produce too much dopamine.

"This finding gives increased importance to our earlier
brain scan
evidence of brain damage in these veterans," said Dr. Robert
Haley, professor of internal medicine. "Showing that the
degree of
brain cell injury directly affects the level of brain
dopamine
production suggests that the brain damage may be having a
real
effect on these veterans' brain function and is not just a
coincidental finding."

In the June issue of Radiology, UT Southwestern researchers
reported that sick Gulf War veterans had 9 percent fewer
brain
cells in the left basal ganglia than healthy veterans.
Previous
research has shown that brain damage in the left basal
ganglia
causes a dramatic increase in dopamine production, while
brain
damage in the right basal ganglia has less effect.
The latest study found dopamine production was approximately
twice
as high in the sick veterans with the worst brain cell
damage as
in the normal veterans.

The UT Southwestern researchers said more study is necessary
to
determine the significance of this finding, but one
possibility is
that long-term neuro-degenerative illness may occur in some
people
as a result.

"We hypothesize that with injury to the brain cells that
normally
control dopamine production, the cells at first go wild,
overproducing dopamine," said Dr. Frederick Petty, a UT
Southwestern professor of psychiatry and staff psychiatrist
at the
Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "The question is
whether,
over time, these over-stimulated cells will wear out and
die. If
so, these patients could develop degenerative brain diseases
such
as Parkinson's disease."

Petty said knowing that veterans could develop such diseases
gives
researchers time to pursue effective treatments.
Doctors performed magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy
imaging on
12 sick veterans and 15 well veterans to measure the amount
of
neuron damage in the basal ganglia. A series of blood tests
performed by Petty measured levels of various breakdown
products
of dopamine, which showed the dopamine production problems.

The researchers decided to study basal ganglia neurons and
dopamine production because the symptoms of Gulf War
syndrome
strongly resemble early symptoms of well-studied
degenerative
diseases of the basal ganglia like Huntington's, Wilson's
and
Fahr's diseases. Typical symptoms of Gulf War syndrome
include
chronic fatigue, dizziness and attacks of vertigo, general
body
pain, attention and concentration problems, personality
changes,
depression, and tremor.

In 1997 Haley and colleagues defined three Gulf War
syndromes in
the Journal of the American Medical Association. Syndrome 1,
commonly found in veterans who wore pesticide-containing
flea
collars, is characterized by impaired cognition. Syndrome 2,
called confusion-ataxia, the most severe and debilitating of
the
syndromes, is found among veterans who said they were
exposed to
low-level nerve gas and experienced side effects from
anti-nerve
gas, or pyridostigmine bromide (PB), tablets. Syndrome 3,
characterized by central pain, is found in veterans who wore
insect repellent with high concentrations of DEET and
experienced
side effects from the PB tablets.

Other UT Southwestern authors of the study include Dr. James
L.
Fleckenstein, professor of radiology; Dr. W. Wesley
Marshall,
clinical instructor of internal medicine; Dr. George G.
McDonald,
a former assistant professor of radiology; and Gerald L.
Kramer, a
research biologist at the Dallas VA Medical Center.

###

This news release is available on our World Wide Web home
page at
http://www.swmed.edu/home_pages/news/


--
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