While cautioning such a surprising finding in mice doesn't translate directly to patients, the scientists said the research opens up new areas of exploration for an incurable brain disorder that afflicts 500,000 people in the United States.
"We hope that our study doesn't prompt all the Parkinsonians to go out to the street corners to deal for methamphetamine and Ecstasy," said Marc Caron, a Duke University Medical Center researcher in Durham, N.C., and co-author of the study.
Caron and his colleagues created mice through genetic engineering and drugs to be free of the brain chemical dopamine. Without dopamine, the rodents became rigid like Parkinson's patients.
The researchers then injected the mice with about 60 different chemical compounds, that are widely abused like Ecstasy and several others from the amphetamine family.
