cells; C-6 cells; SchizophreniaSchizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric illness with two major types of symptoms-positive or psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and negative or deficit symptoms, such as amotivation, apathy, and asociality. Approximately 1% of the population suffers from schizophrenia (Kaplan and Sadock 1988). The serendipitous discovery of chlorpromazine four decades ago not only provided the first efficacious therapeutic intervention, but also opened horizons into research about the etiology and therapy of this disease. It was soon hypothesized that chlorpromazine and similar drugs worked by being pharmacological antagonists of the neurotransmitter dopamine (Seeman et al. 1976;Creese et al. 1976), a hypothesis that ultimately provided the foundation for the commonly accepted division of dopamine receptors into two classes (Garau et al. 1978), now often called D 1 and D 2 (Kebabian and Calne 1979).During the past decade, molecular cloning studies have resulted in the identification of several genes coding for dopamine receptors. There now are at least two From the Departments of Pharmacology (CP, RBM) and Psychiatry (CPL, RBM), and Medicinal Chemistry (RBM), Curricula in Toxicology (CPL, RBM), and Neurobiology (MML, RBM), UNC Neuroscience Center (CPL, CP, MML, RBM), University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Molecular Neuropharmacology Section (CM, DJ, JAS, AMG, DRS), National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Maryland.Address correspondence to: Dr. Cindy Lawler, CB #7250; UNC Neuroscience Center, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7250. Received April 17, 1998; revised August 27, 1998; accepted September 21, 1998. (Zhou et al. 1990;Monsma et al. 1990;Sunahara et al. 1990;Dearry et al. 1990) and D 1B (Tiberi et al. 1991) or D 5 (Sunahara et al. 1991], both of these linked functionally to stimulation of cAMP synthesis, and preferentially recognizing 1-phenyl-tetrahydrobenzazepines (e.g., SCH23390). The D 2 -like receptors come from at least three genes and include multiple splice variants. The D 2 -like receptors [D 2S (Bunzow et al. 1988), D 2L (Giros et al. 1989;Monsma et al. 1989), D 3 (Sokoloff et al. 1990, and D 4 ] sometimes are linked to inhibition of cAMP synthesis and have a different pharmacological specificity from the D 1 -like receptors (i.e., having much higher affinity for spiperone or sulpiride).The traditional view of antipsychotic drug efficacy posits a primary role for pharmacological antagonism of D 2 -like receptors. Despite the demonstrable effectiveness of dopamine D 2 receptor antagonists, however, a substantial number (up to 20%) of patients are considered unresponsive to these typical antipsychotics (Kane et al. 1988). Furthermore, the typical antipsychotics have significant and serious side effects that make them less than optimal therapeutic agents (see Peacock and Gerlach 1996). For example, they cause acute drug-induced parkinsonian symptoms (...

Background Parkinson’s disease (PD) is marked pathologically by dopamine neuron loss and iron overload in the substantia nigra pars compacta. Midbrain iron content is reported to be increased in PD based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) R2* changes. Because quantitative susceptibility mapping is a novel MRI approach to measure iron content, we compared it with R2* for assessing midbrain changes in PD. Methods Quantitative susceptibility mapping and R2* maps were obtained from 47 PD patients and 47 healthy controls. Midbrain susceptibility and R2* values were analyzed by using both voxel-based and region-of-interest approaches in normalized space, and analyzed along with clinical data, including disease duration, Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) I, II, and III sub-scores, and levodopa-equivalent daily dosage. All studies were done while PD patients were “on drug.” Results Compared with controls, PD patients showed significantly increased susceptibility values in both right (cluster size = 106 mm3) and left (164 mm3) midbrain, located ventrolateral to the red nucleus that corresponded to the substantia nigra pars compacta. Susceptibility values in this region were correlated significantly with disease duration, UPDRS II, and levodopa-equivalent daily dosage. Conversely, R2* was increased significantly only in a much smaller region (62 mm3) of the left lateral substantia nigra pars compacta and was not significantly correlated with clinical parameters. Conclusion The use of quantitative susceptibility mapping demonstrated marked nigral changes that correlated with clinical PD status more sensitively than R2*. These data suggest that quantitative susceptibility mapping may be a superior imaging biomarker to R2* for estimating brain iron levels in PD.

Background-Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies suggest increased transverse relaxation rate (R2*) and reduced diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fractional anisotropy (FA) values in the SN in PD. The R2* and FA changes may reflect different aspects of PD-related

In this study, we tested several hypotheses related to changes in finger interaction and multifinger synergies during multifinger force production tasks in Parkinson's disease. Ten patients with Parkinson's disease, mostly early stage, and 11 healthy control subjects participated in the study. Synergies were defined as covaried adjustment of commands to fingers that stabilized the total force produced by the hand. Both Parkinson's disease patients and control subjects performed accurate isometric force production tasks with the fingers of both the dominant and nondominant hands. The Parkinson's disease patients showed significantly lower maximal finger forces and higher unintended force production (enslaving). These observations suggest that changes in supraspinal control have a major effect on finger individuation. The synergy indexes in the patients were weaker in both steady-state and cyclic force production tasks compared with the controls. These indexes also were stronger in the left (nondominant) hand in support of the dynamic-dominance hypothesis. Half of the patients could not perform the cyclic task at the highest frequency (2 Hz). Anticipatory adjustments of synergies prior to a quick force pulse production were delayed and reduced in the patients compared with the controls. Similar differences were observed between the asymptomatic hands of the patients with symptoms limited to one side of the body and matched hands of control subjects. Our study demonstrates that the elusive changes in motor coordination in Parkinson's disease can be quantified objectively, even in patients at a relatively early stage of the disease. The results suggest an important role of the basal ganglia in synergy formation and demonstrate a previously unknown component of impaired feedforward control in Parkinson's disease reflected in the reduced and delayed anticipatory synergy adjustments.