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Article: PD: A DISORDER NOT ALL IN THE FAMILY NEWLY DISCOVERED PARKINSON MUTANT GENE PRESAGES PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS, GENERAL THERAPY.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- January 15, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: David N. Leff , Science Editor
Out in California two decades ago, a bunch of heroin addicts tried shooting up a new synthetic designer narcotic they'd heard about. They ended up injecting a chemical toxin known as MPTP that sent four of them to the hospital with irreversible symptoms of Parkinson disease (PD).
MPTP (the acronym stands for 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6- tetrahydropyridine) has since become a favored resource for creating animal models that faithfully mimic the chronic pathology of the human PD movement disorder.
"In PD," explained research neurologist Joseph Jankovic, "there is a loss of dopaminergic neurons in the ...