Thomas J. Ruth

TL;DR: In vivo evidence is provided for substantial release of endogenous dopamine in the striatum of PD patients in response to placebo, indicating that the placebo effect in PD is powerful and is mediated through activation of the damaged nigrostriatal dopamine system.

TL;DR: Observations suggest that the activity of aromatic L‐amino acid decarboxylase is up‐regulated, whereas the plasma membrane DA transporter is down‐regulated in the striatum of patients with PD.

TL;DR: The results indicate that, at the synaptic level, an identical dose of levodopa induces increasingly larger 1-h changes in dopamine levels as Parkinson's disease progresses.

TL;DR: (13)NO(3) (-) influx in the high concentration range revealed a strictly linear concentration dependence and fluxes appeared to be mediated by a constitutive, rather than an inducible, transport system.

TL;DR: The first direct evidence that dopaminergic impairment can exist without clinical deficits is shown, in the context of the hypothesis that Parkinson's disease may stem from clinically silent damage to the substantia nigra, followed by slow attrition of neurones in this region because of its particular vulnerability to cell loss as a normal consequence of ageing.