Zolpidem in Parkinson's disease

The Pharmacology of l-DOPA-Induced Dyskinesia in Parkinson’s Disease

“…Diazepam also exerted a mild antidyskinetic effect in a pilot clinical study (Pourcher et al, 1989). In a case report, zolpidem, a GABA Apositive allosteric modulator (Smith et al, 2001), significantly alleviated LID (Ruzicka et al, 2000), although antidyskinetic effects of zolpidem were not reported in another clinical study (Daniele et al, 1997). Although the benzodiazepine diazepam effectively reduced dyskinesia in the MPTP-lesioned NHP and in a small clinical study, the use of benzodiazepines to alleviate LID might be complicated by the fact that these drugs are susceptible to tolerance, can cause sedation and dependence (Lader, 2008), and for these reasons, one might be reluctant to initiate them to alleviate LID.…”

The Effects of Zolpidem on Akinesia in a Parkinson Disease Patient: A Case Report

“…The binding receptors of zolpidem are abundant in the globus pallidus interna (Gpi) and substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNpr), which are output structures of the cortical-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuit 1,3,4) . Some authors have reported that the subthalamic nucleus (STN) has a high density of zolpidem-binding receptors that contain the α1 subunit 5) .…”

“…Although there is a lack of precise evidence of the action mechanism, Jankovic reported that GABAnergic enhancement may lead to impro-ved motor symptoms of Parkinson disease (PD) 3) . Subsequently, other studies indicated that zolpidem is effective in improving motor dysfunction in movement disorders including PD [4][5][6] . We present a patient with advanced PD who showed dramatic improvement in her motor symptoms soon after taking zolpidem, which had initially been prescribed for insomnia.…”

Modulation of synaptic GABAAreceptor function by zolpidem in substantia nigra pars reticulata

“…The microinfusion of zolpidem and other benzodiazepine agonists into the SNr produced anticonvulsant effects on clonic and tonic-clonic seizures [13,14] . Recently, a few clinic reports suggested that zolpidem exerted a therapeutic effect on some groups of Parkinson's patients [15][16][17] . However, the direct pharmacological effects of zolpidem in the SNr are not known.…”