Adenosine receptor antagonists show promising results as an adjunctive treatment for Parkinson's disease

The effect of several adenosine receptor antagonists were assessed on an animal model of Parkinson's disease (PD) to examine if the compounds had any effect in facilitating movement of a Sprague-Dawley rat. Gross motor movement was measured in an open-field design to assess the total distance that the animal traveled. A chemical model of PD was obtained using haloperidol (i.p.) 50 minutes before observations, and the adenosinergic compounds used were caffeine, KF17837, SCH58261, and CPT. The results were perplexing; as expected, caffeine significantly restored movement, but in contrast with expected results, the A1 antagonist exhibited a restoration of gross motor movement abilities in the animal that was given CPT. In addition, the adenosinergic A2A antagonists (SCH58261 and KF17837) did not produce a significant restoration in movement; these findings contradicted our hypotheses.