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Sandie,
I can answer your question with my relatively limited knowledge about neural
biochemistry and neural transmitters as a clinical psxychologisr.  The
apparent connection between schizophrenia and PD is the class of drugs which
was the first to successfully treat schiz.--the phenothiazxines,.like
thorazine and merllaril--often caused Parkinsonian symptoms--such as
shuffling gait, fixed, mask-like facial appearance and drooling.  That, plus
the fact that PD meds--especially sinemet--can cause some people to
hallucinate and have other psychotic symptoms led some to conclude that PD
and schiz. are biochemically opposite to each other.  Further
when some of the anti-psychotic drugs were used to treat PD-related
psychoses, they made the PD symptoms worse.   So, there appears to be some
kind of inverse relation between PD and schiz but this appears to be moretof
theoretical than practical value at this time, and the relationship is not
fully understood.  And, fortunately, a new class of anti-psychotics has been
discovered in recent years which effectively treats schiz without causing
Parkinsonian side effects and which has treated and revived some of the most
intractable, withdrawn schiz's who had been resistant to all other
anti-psychoticc drugs.  The major, most widely used of this class of drugs is
clozapine, brand name clozaril, and the only major downside thus far is that
it can causea potentially fatal blood disorder known as agranular
cytosis.but this cab be easily monitored by required, weekly blood tests.  Lo
and
behold, clozaril ws also found to be effective in treating PD-related
psychotic symptoms without causing a worsening of PD symptoms; in fact, in
some cases, improvement ioin PD symptoms was noted.  The dosage of clozaril
use to treat
PD-related psychosis is minuscule, compared to the level needed to treat
schiz., spo the risk of agranular cytosis.
I probably covered 'everything you ever wanted to know about schiz and
PD--and a few things you didn't want to know, but I hope this helps to answer
some of your Q's.
Marty Polonsky