Publication Date:
1987-07-31
Description:
The decline in the high incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, parkinsonism, and Alzheimer-type dementia among the Chamorro population of the western Pacific islands of Guam and Rota, coupled with the absence of demonstrable viral and hereditable factors in this disease, suggests the gradual disappearance of an environmental factor selectively associated with this culture. One candidate is seed of the neurotoxic plant Cycas circinalis L., a traditional source of food and medicine which has been used less with the Americanization of the Chamorro people after World War II. Macaques were fed the Cycas amino acid beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine, a low-potency convulsant that has excitotoxic activity in mouse brain, which is attenuated by N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists. These animals developed corticomoto-neuronal dysfunction, parkinsonian features, and behavioral anomalies, with chromatolytic and degenerative changes of motor neurons in cerebral cortex and spinal cord. In concert with existing epidemiological and animal data, these findings support the hypothesis that cycad exposure plays an important role in the etiology of the Guam disease.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Spencer, P S -- Nunn, P B -- Hugon, J -- Ludolph, A C -- Ross, S M -- Roy, D N -- Robertson, R C -- NS-19611/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1987 Jul 31;237(4814):517-22.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3603037" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amino Acids, Diamino/*toxicity
;
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/*chemically induced
;
Animals
;
Basal Ganglia Diseases/*chemically induced
;
Environmental Exposure
;
Guam
;
Macaca fascicularis
;
Male
;
Motor Cortex/drug effects
;
Motor Neurons/drug effects
;
Neural Conduction/drug effects
;
Neuromuscular Diseases/chemically induced
;
Neurotoxins/*toxicity
;
*Plants, Toxic
;
Spinal Cord/drug effects
;
Substantia Nigra/drug effects
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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