In the early stages or atypical manifestation of parkinsonism, dopamine transporter imaging can assist the early diagnosis. We describe a 19 year-old man presenting with progressive gait disturbance, cervical dystonia and head tremor. 18F-FP-CIT PET (FluoroPropyl-Carbomethoxylodopropyl-nor-BTropane positron emission tomography) was done and interpreted as normal at other hospital, and his diagn...

An expansion in the CAG repeat of the IT15 (huntingtin) gene underlies the development of Huntington's disease (HD), but the basis for the specific vulnerability of dopamine-receptive striatal neurons remains unclear. To examine the potential role of the dopamine system in the emergence of pathological conditions in HD, we generated a double mutant mouse strain with both enhanced dopamine trans...

OBJECTIVE The abuse potential of methylphenidate has been related to the drug's capacity to produce a rapid onset of blockade of the presynaptic dopamine transporter in the brain. An oral once-a-day osmotic controlled-release formulation of methylphenidate produces a more gradual rise in plasma methylphenidate concentration, compared with immediate-release methylphenidate. The authors hypothesi...

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) at the subthalamic nucleus has been approved as an effective treatment for refractory symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). Studies have shown that bilateral DBS surgery in PD patients results in clinical improvement without reducing dopamine transporter function. Here, we report our longitudinal findings in one PD patient, ie, decreases in striatal dopamine transpo...

CONTEXT Modafinil, a wake-promoting drug used to treat narcolepsy, is increasingly being used as a cognitive enhancer. Although initially launched as distinct from stimulants that increase extracellular dopamine by targeting dopamine transporters, recent preclinical studies suggest otherwise. OBJECTIVE To measure the acute effects of modafinil at doses used therapeutically (200 mg and 400 mg ...

5-Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), dopamine and norepinephrine are important monoamine neurotransmitters implicated in multiple brain mechanisms and regulated by high-affinity transmembrane monoamine transporters. Although knockout mice lacking 5-HT, dopamine or norepinephrine transporters are widely used to assess brain monoamine processes, these models have several methodological limitations. There ...

A comprehensive analysis of the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) Dopamine Transporter Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (DaTscan) images is carried out using a voxel-based logistic lasso model. The model reveals that sub-regional voxels in the caudate, the putamen, as well as in the globus pallidus are informative for classifying images into control and PD classes. Fur...

CONTEXT Preclinical studies demonstrate that nicotine administration leads to dopamine release in the ventral striatum. However, human studies reveal considerable interindividual variability in the extent of smoking-induced dopamine release. OBJECTIVE To determine whether common gene variants of the brain dopamine pathway explain this observed phenotypic variability in humans. DESIGN Blood ...