Diagnostic difference between Parkinson's and MSA

[Guest guest]

I was looking around on the Internet and came across

the following article which is a couple of years old.

It indicates that in Parkinson's, loss of

norepinephrine-producing nerves throughout the heart

was found in the nine Parkinson's patients who also

had orthostatic hypotension. However, most of the

Parkinson's disease patients without orthostatic

hypotension also had evidence of decreased sympathetic

nerve terminals in the heart. The sympathetic nervous

system controls blood pressure, pulse rate,

perspiration, and many other automatic responses to

stress. Since norepinephrine and dopamine are part of

the same family of chemicals, called catecholamines,

the new finding suggests that whatever causes the loss

of dopamine-producing nerve terminals in the brain

also causes the loss of sympathetic nerve terminals in

the heart. The article goes on to say that MSA

patients have a normal number of

norepinephrine-producing nerves throughout the heart.

The nerve terminals are determined using a PET scan.

If people have looked at this before or it has now

been proven incorrect, I apologise.

The web address of the article is as follows :

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/sep2000/ninds-04.htm

Regards Sowter

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