From: [log in to unmask] (Jerry Swartz)
Subject: Scanning for Parkinsons Artical From Toronto Star Sat January 13 1996
Tiny amouts of cocaine injected into a vein may help doctors
diagnose early Parkinson's
disease,says a Yale university medical specialist.
The cocaine is tagged with a radioactive substance so it shows up
on a brain scan.
Dr. Robert Innis, associate professor of phychiatry and
pharmacology at Yale Univerity, New Haven
Conn., and colleagues have shown that people with Parkinson's take up less
of the cocaine marker
in their brains than healthy persons.
Cocaine adheres to the same terminals on the brain cells as
dopamine, a brain chemical
in volved in control of movement. In people with Parkinson's these terminals
degenerate.
Syptpms of Parkinson's stem from too little dopamine in the brain.
In a report in The Medical Post, Innis explains that so little
cocaine is required for the
diagnostic test that patients don't get high and there is no risk of
addictiction.
The brain scan is done using single photon emission computed
tomography (SPECT0,
a scanning device that is mutch cheaper and available in more medical
centers than PET(positron
emission tomography).
Innis says the test could also be used to monitor a patient to
determine whether a potential
theraphy is effectively protecting against progression of the brain disorder.
