St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Release: Evidence Links Cocaine Abuse And Parkinson’s Disease

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Dec. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Adults who abuse cocaine might increase their risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD), and pregnant women who abuse cocaine could increase the risk of their children developing PD later in life, according to results of laboratory studies performed by investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The study’s findings are important because there are currently more than 2 million cocaine abusers in the US today, the researchers said. Many individuals who abused the drug during the height of the cocaine abuse epidemic of the 1970s and 1980s are now entering their older years, when symptoms of PD are likely to emerge.

A report on this work appears in the online, prepublication edition of Neuroscience.

The St. Jude team showed in a laboratory model of both the adult and fetal brain that exposure to cocaine alters the nerve bodies in the region of the brain called the substantia nigra. This damage made the neurons more susceptible to MPTP, a toxin known to cause symptoms of PD.

“Our findings suggest that cocaine makes the substantial nigra pars compacta in adult brains susceptible to further damage from environmental toxins that can cause Parkinson’s disease,” said Richard Smeyne, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology. “The findings also strongly suggest that women who abuse cocaine during pregnancies put their children at an increased risk for developing Parkinson’s disease.”

Based on the study’s results, it might not be surprising to see a rise in the number of cases of Parkinson’s disease in the next 10 or 20 years or so, said Steven A. Lloyd, Ph.D., the article’s first author.

The other author of the current article is C.J. Faherty, Ph.D. This work was supported in part by ALSAC.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering work in finding cures and saving children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. Founded by late entertainer Danny Thomas and based in Memphis, Tenn., St. Jude freely shares its discoveries with scientific and medical communities around the world. No family ever pays for treatments not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. St. Jude is financially supported by ALSAC, its fund-raising organization. For more information, please visit http://www.stjude.org.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

CONTACT: Carrie Strehlau, Public Relations, +1-901-495-2295, orcarrie.strehlau@stjude.org, or Marc Kusinitz, Ph.D., ScientificCommunications, +1-901-495-5020, or marc.kusinitz@stjude.org, both of St.Jude Children’s Research Hospital