Pemoline induced Chorea and Gilles de la Tourette's Syndrome

Abstract

Pemoline is a central nervous system stimulant, with pharmacological effects resembling amphetamine and methylphenidate in increasing central dopamine transmission (Fuxe et al, 1970; Sheel-Kurge, 1971).

Tardive Tourette-like syndrome

“…The literature search revealed that 38 papers corresponding to 41 cases have been published (Table 1; Golden, 1974;Klempel, 1974;Klawans et al, 1978;Bremness and Sverd, 1979;DeVeaugh-Geiss, 1980;Mitchell and Matthews, 1980;Stahl, 1980;Bachman, 1981;Seeman et al, 1981;Fog et al, 1982;Klawans et al, 1982;Mueller and Aminoff, 1982;Rebal, 1982;Bonthala and West, 1983;Jeste et al, 1983;Neglia et al, 1984;Munetz et al, 1985;Sandyk and Gillman, 1985;Lal and AlAnsari, 1986;Sandyk, 1986a;Gillman and Sandyk, 1987;Perry et al, 1989;Karagianis and Nagpurkar, 1990;Kuniyoshi et al, 1992;Fennig et al, 1994;Moshe et al, 1994;Bharucha and Sethi, 1995;Jaffe et al, 1995;Thomas and Reagan, 1996;Lombroso, 1999;Reid, 2004;Seemuller et al, 2006;Yamauchi and Ohmori, 2006;Alkin et al, 2007;Kozian and Friederich, 2007;Luat et al, 2009;Willmund et al, 2009;Fountoulakis and Panagiotidis, 2011). Only papers reporting the emergence of Tourette-like syndrome in patients with...…”

“…However, the first ever induced tardive Tourette-like symptoms were reported after treatment with methylphenidate in 1974 (Golden, 1974). Since then more tardive TS cases related to stimulants use have been reported (Bremness and Sverd, 1979;Mitchell and Matthews, 1980;Bachman, 1981;Bonthala and West, 1983). It is interesting that tardive TS cases were also reported after treatment with L-dopa (Klempel, 1974), phenobarbital (Sandyk, 1986a), clonazepam (Gillman and Sandyk, 1987) and ofloxacin (Thomas and Reagan, 1996).…”

Amphetamine‐induced movement disorder

“…Pemoline, an agent structurally different to amphetamines but with similar pharmacological activity, has been reported to cause choreoathetoid movements in an adult, which responded to chlorpromazine 5 . A similar movement disorder and a sympathomimetic toxidrome occurred in two preschool children who ingested an unknown quantity of pemoline tablets 6 .…”

d-Amphetamine-induced “Floating limb” syndrome in young rhesus monkeys

“…This has been seen in people who abuse amphetamine (Rylander 1972;Klawans and Weiner J976;Lundh and Tunving 198t;Rhee et al 1988) or the related stimulants methylphenidate (Extein 1978) and pemoline (Bonthala and West 1983;Briscoe et al 1988). However, this type of drug-induced movement disorder is not restricted to drug abusers.…”

“…Children who have been given pemoline have also been found to develop choreoathetoid movements (Nausieda et al 1981;Singh et al 1983). These abnormal movements can range from very rapid flinging, akin to what is seen in Tourette's syndrome (Bonthala and West 1983), to tonic athetoid postures of arm extension. Amphetamine exacerbates the chorea seen in people with Huntington's and other varieties of naturally occurring chorea (Klawans and Weiner 1974).…”