Hi,

Ran across this morning...at first thought ho hum, then thought wait if this helps so called normal brains is it not helping ours in the same way?

Amantadine, once used to treat the flu, is now commonly prescribed to patients with prolonged consciousness disorders after suffering a brain injury. Dr. Giacino’s placebo-controlled trial took 184 patients in a vegetative or minimally conscious state and gave them either a placebo or amantadine for four weeks, and then continued to study the patients for two more weeks after they stopped taking the medication. There was a marked improvement in recovery of cognitive skills amongst the amantadine group compared to the placebo, and although recovery slowed in the two weeks that the patients were not taking amantadine, it was shown to accelerate the pace of functional recovery in patients with post-traumatic disorders of consciousness. The drug must be actively used to speed recovery. (Source: www.nejm.org)

The weird thing is that the gains only happened in delayed use i.e. 4-16 weeks post injury. Scientists think gain comes from increased dopamine metabolism by increasing presynaptic release and inhibiting its reuptake postsynaptically.

Just published 10/1/12: http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1102609

If they could compare what is going on in our brains, PWP with post brain trauma people and find out what we have in common might this hold a promising key to the puzzle of PD? It sounds like maybe trauma may be a much larger component than we thought. Note too there are several case studies of people looking inexplicably Parkinsonian to intense worsening of symptoms in people already diagnosed were due to a chronic subdural haemotoma. Treatment resulted in PD symptom improvement across the board. Many people end up with these blood clots do not recall overt brain injury or falls and these things can go undetected for years.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10481787

Is it inflammation, vascular, or a combination thereof? Regardless the study of Amantadine in PD may yield that elusive common connection no one can seem to find.

Food for thought...

Laura