Differential Effects of Anaesthesia on the phMRI Response to Acute Ketamine Challenge.

AIMS: Pharmacological-challenge magnetic resonance imaging (phMRI) is powerful new tool enabling researchers to map the central effects of neuroactive drugs in vivo. To employ this technique pre-clinically, head movements and the stress of restraint are usually reduced by maintaining animals under general anaesthesia. However, interactions between the drug of interest and the anaesthetic employed may potentially confound data interpretation.

Recent advances in the treatment of L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative movement disorder resulting from the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta. The most widely used treatment for PD is administration of the dopamine precursor L-DOPA, although this eventually results in uncontrolled involuntary movements (dyskinesia) that can be more debilitating than the underlying disease itself. The causes of L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia are unclear, but probably involve non-physiological pulsatile stimulation of dopamine receptors or non-physiological dopamine release (eg, from serotonergic nerve terminals) in the striatum.

Antiparkinsonian activity of Ro 25-6981, a NR2B subunit specific NMDA receptor antagonist, in animal models of Parkinson's disease.

N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists have antiakinetic and antidyskinetic effects in animals models of Parkinson's disease (PD). However, non-selective inhibition of NMDA receptors throughout the central nervous system may result in undesired effects such as ataxia and psychosis. We therefore studied Ro 25-6981, an activity-dependent antagonist of NMDA receptors containing the NR2B subunit which are predominantly expressed in the striatum.