Anant Bahadur Patel1,
Anup Nirmal Chugani1, Rajeeva Voleti1, Puneet Bagga1
1NMR
Microimaging and Spectroscopy, CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular
Biology, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
MPTP is widely used chemical model to study the pathophysilogy of Parkinsons disease. Levodopa is the most successful drug used for the treatment of Parkinsons disease. Efficacy of levodopa for improving cerebral metabolism in MPTP treated mice was evaluated by 1H-[13C]-NMR spectroscopy in conjunction with infusion of [1,6-13C2]glucose. Cortical and striatal glucose oxidation by glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons, and total neurotransmission were found to be reduced in MPTP treated mice. Acute levodopa treatment improves the cerebral metabolism to the control level.