Melatonin and Parkinsonism FREE

Paul S. Papavasiliou; George C. Cotzias; Simone E. Düby; Andreas J. Steck; Margaret Bell; William H. Lawrence

JAMA. 1972;221(1):88-89. doi:10.1001/jama.1972.03200140072031

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ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT | REFERENCES

To the Editor.— Lerner discovered melatonin (N-Acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine)¹ and showed that this pineal hormone can induce sedation in man.² This agent antagonizes the darkening of the skin and, therefore, perhaps also some other action of melanophore-stimulating hormone (βMSH).³ Since injections of βMSH had aggravated the tremor of parkinsonism,⁴ we had administered this antagonist of βMSH to a patient but induced only a diminution of tremor.³ Others, however, reported impressive improvement of several symptoms of parkinsonism⁵ at a time when we had reversed the adventitious movements caused by levodopa [3-(3, 4-dihydroxyphenyl)-L-alanine] with melatonin in experimental animals.⁶ We conducted therefore a single-blind study in patients with parkinsonism who received either melatonin alone or melatonin plus levodopa, which had caused intermittent adventitious movements.⁷The inpatients listed in the Table and all of the outpatients had idiopathic parkinsonism except patient 11 who had postencephalitic disease. Among

REFERENCES

ABSTRACT | REFERENCES

Lerner AB, Case JD, Heinzelman RV: Structure of melatonin . J Amer Chem Soc 81:6084, 1959;.

Lerner AB, Case JD: Melatonin . Fed Proc 19:590, 1960;.

Cotzias GC, Papavasilou PS, Ginos J, et al: Metabolic modification of Parkinson's disease and of chronic manganese poisoning . Ann Rev Med 22:305, 1971;.

Cotzias GC, Van Woert MH, Schiffer L: Aromatic amino acids and modification of parkinsonism . New Eng J Med 276:374, 1967;.

Antón-Tay JL, Diaz FG: On the effect of melatonin upon human brain: Its possible therapeutic implications . Life Sci 10:841, 1971;.

Cotzias GC, Tang LC, Miller ST, et al: Melatonin and abnormal movements induced by L-dopa in mice . Science 173:450, 1971;.

Papavasiliou PS, Cotzias GC, Düby SE, et al: Levodopa in parkinsonism: Potentiation of central effects with a peripheral inhibitor . New Eng J Med 286:8, 1972;.

Cotzias GC, Papavasiliou PS, Fehling C, et al: Similarities between neurologic effects of L-dopa and of apomorphine . New Eng J Med 282:31, 1970;.

Cotzias GC, Papavasiliou PS, Düby SE, et al: Some newer metabolic concepts in the treatment of parkinsonism . Neurology , to be published.

Cotzias GC, Papavasiliou PS, Gellene R: Modification of parkinsonism: Chronic treatment with L-dopa . New Eng J Med 280:337, 1969;.

Welch AS, Welch B: Solvent extraction method for simultaneous determination of norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and 5-hydroxyindoleacitic acid in mouse brain . Anal Chem 30:161, 1969;.

Mendels J, Frazer A, Fitzgerald RG, et al: Biogenic amine metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid of depressed and manic patients . Science 175:1380, 1972;.

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