 |
 |
PET Shows Pallidotomy For Parkinson's Normalizes Movement-Related Brain Activity WESTPORT, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The 27th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience is under way in New Orleans. On the first day of presentations, Dr. Robert S. Turner of Emory University told meeting participants that positron emission studies of patients who have undergone pallidotomy for the treatment of intractable Parkinson's disease show that the procedure actually normalizes brain activity related to voluntary movement. The Atlanta, Georgia, researcher and colleagues have followed five patients, documenting brain activity prior to pallidotomy and then again 3 months afterward, by measuring the subjects' ability to control a joystick. Surgery was clinically effective in four of the five subjects. Dr. Turner reports that regional blood flow in the cerebellum and thalamus increased after pallidotomy. Patients required less effort to make rapid movements and less recruitment of other areas of the brain occurred in order for the patients to accomplish intentional movement after surgery. Dr. Turner noted in an Emory release that, "We were surprised...to find a number of other cortical areas strongly related to the speed of movement in the parkinsonism patients but not activated in normal subjects. These additional areas...might have been activated in an attempt to compensate for the loss of function of the areas normally used. Or, another possibility is that the abnormally enhanced activation seen in some brain areas may actually contribute to one or more of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease." Judith Richards [log in to unmask]