Behaviour Correlates of Neurotransmitter Activity

Abstract

ABSTRACTMost disorders of motor activity including disturbances of muscle tone and of locomotor activity observed in patients with neurological disorders have been reproduced experimentally in animals. Most motor disorders of the extrapyramidal type including those associated with Parkinson’s disease and choreiform and athetoid involuntary movements, have been reproduced exclusively in primates. This is most likely related to the highly complex organization of the extrapyramidal and related nervous mechanisms subserving the corresponding peculiar type of motor control in the primate brain. Other types of motor disturbances including cervical and trunkal dystonias, ataxia, hypotonicity, spasticity and intention tremor, however, have been successfully induced in various mammalian species. The latter types of motor disorders are related to disturbances of central nervous mechanisms which show similar patterns in the brains of different animal species. Histopathological and neurochemical changes associated with extrapyramidal disorders have been discovered and more precisely determined as a consequence of the development of new technical approaches. Therefore numerous morphological, physiological and neurochemical data concerning the extrapyramidal system are now available but a better knowledge of their precise and subtle interrelationship is greatly needed in order to develop more efficient therapeutic procedures.