Scopalomine. For depression. And apparently, also "parkinsonism".
 

I just happened to hear a radio program while trapped in traffic this morning, which was about depression. It began as a discussion of depression and ketamine, which apparently has a wonderous impact on depression. The effects are almost complete remission of depression, even for people who had previously and unsuccessfully tried every other anti-depressant out there.

One of the people speaking was a gentleman who was dx'd with depression at the age of 15. He tried every drug out there, and was researching how to kill himself one day when he thought before he did that, he'd offer himself up as a guinea pig. He called UCSF and made his offer, and was referred to the NIH mental health dept., who put him on Ketamine. His depression vanished completely within hours, and after several days on ketamine, he felt "normal", was looking forward to things, and feeling better than he had in years.

The NIH dept. of mental health (a Dr. Zerratti (sp?) was quoted as saying the ketamine affects gluatamate, and that it actually "causes neurons to form new connections". This really caught my ear.

Unfortunately, ketamine has bad side effects, including addiction, hallucinations, etc. One cannot be on it for life. It is used/abused recreationally, also not good.

But less potent than ketamine, is scopalomine, currently used for, of all things, sea sickness (not OTC, though, darn it!). They are researching scopalomine for depression as well, as initial research indicates it is very effective for depression, without the side effects of ketamine (so far), and it works very quickly to boot. The broadcast said that scientists do not know how it works, but suspect it involves glutamate.

In researching this drug, I read that it was used long ago for "parkinsonism". I found an abstract of a 1967 Neurology trade journal article mentioning this. Here's the link, you dont' get much in the abstract, though:

http://archneur.ama-assn.org/cgi/con...mmary/17/2/124

Does anyone have any personal experience with scopalomine they could share? Or know anyone who does? It's interesting that back in 1967 they referred to PD as "parkinsonism" and not "parkinson's disease".

Why is this drug not offered to us, or even mentioned? I'd never heard of this drug until today on the radio. Is sinemet so much more "effective"? (and let's just say that "effective" is a very relative term when it comes to PD).

Please share any personal experience information you may have with this drug. So far I can only find internet discussions of it with regard to depression, bipolar, etc.

the story in print
 

Here's a link to the story; it was on NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012...he-whole-story

It was part 2 of a two-part story; the link to the first part can be found in the article

sarcastic post, sorry
 

I loved the sentence that said depression was"not just about serotonin"! HELLO! Next we will read this earth-shattering shocker: "Parkinson's, it's not just about dopamine". Like most everyone with PD hasn't known this for years.

I also really liked the ending paragraph:

"And researchers say the consistent patient reactions have actually made it more difficult to do good studies of ketamine. The drug's effects are so powerful and distinctive, they say, it's hard to prevent doctors and patients in an experiment from figuring out who got the drug and who didn't."

WHAT? Geez, I thought that's what they've been complaining about all this time, that there was this pesky placebo effect muddying up the results waters and making it difficult to tell whether someone's improvement was placebo or the drug. Sounds like with this ketamine trial, it's very clear, how is that not great?

Thanks for posting this.