Word: parkinsonism
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...transplant procedure was not without precedent. Beginning five years ago, doctors in Sweden tried similar surgery on four Parkinson's victims. They achieved only slight improvements that soon faded. Madrazo credits his team's success to modifications in surgical technique. The Swedes had transferred the adrenal tissue directly into a C-shaped structure in the middle of the brain called the caudate nucleus, where dopamine exerts its primary effects. The Mexicans, by contrast, used surgical staples to anchor the cells onto the exterior of the caudate, which is continually bathed in cerebrospinal fluid. This nourishing bath may have helped...
...symptoms had begun in their early 30s for both men. First there was the mild stiffening of limbs and the tremors that mark the onset of Parkinson's disease. Then came the gradual loss of muscle control, leaving them prisoners in their own bodies -- mentally lucid but physically unable to eat, urinate or comb their hair without assistance. Levodopa, the most common treatment for the debilitating illness, had ceased to work for one man and could not be tolerated by the other. Nor were other drugs of use. Facing further deterioration, the two agreed to become guinea pigs...
Past research has shown that abnormal dopamine levels play a role in Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and possibly narcolepsy, but the Stanford research appears to be the first to link the chemical to a normal personality trait. "There's nothing pathological about shyness," says Psychiatrist Roy King, who headed the study. He concedes that research such as his could lead to new drugs that modify individual personality, but finds the concept "scary." Besides, he says, "society needs both extroverted and introverted people...
...reflected the growing confidence of many doctors that fetal-cell surgery could soon become an important medical tool. In the People's Republic of China, physicians have used fetal-cell implants to treat diabetics. In Sweden, researchers have performed fetal-brain-cell transplants to rid rats of Parkinson's disease, a progressive and hitherto incurable neural disorder. In the U.S. and elsewhere, fetal-cell experiments with animals have shown promise of treatments for a host of other human disorders, ranging from blood diseases like thalassemia to paralysis caused by spinal-cord damage. Says Neurosurgeon Barth Green of the University...
Then Andrei began describing what had happened to him. He had kept a diary of everything. How they tormented him with talk that he had Parkinson's disease and how Dr. Obukhov brought him a book on Parkinsonism and said he had got the disease from his hunger strikes, adding, "You will become a total invalid, unable to unfasten your own trousers." Judging from what Andrei told me and the symptoms that partly remain (involuntary jaw movements), I think he suffered a stroke or a severe cerebral vascular spasm because of force- feeding or inoculations...