The frozen drug addicts.

Currently, MPTP is the drug of choice for simulating and producing Parkinson’s disease in animals. The drug acts as a toxin to the cells in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra, which is the brain region that is damaged in human Parkinson’s patients. This produces good behavioural similarities between the animals and human patients, such as tremor. However, MPTP was discovered rather unconventionally.

In the 1980’s, a disease gripped a community, which caused patients to be completely frozen and unable to move, but, this wasn't a virally or bacterially caused disease. This was caused by the accident production of MPTP when attempting to make a recreational drug similar to heroin, MPPP, this caused a population of drug addicts to develop late stage Parkinson’s three days after taking the drug. Dr William Langston investigated this phenomena and this can be read about in the book, The Case of the Frozen Drug Addicts.

However, this unfortunate incident did help develop a good toxin to model Parkinson’s, from which treatments can be tested. L-Dopa, one of the best treatments for the disease, was developed using MPTP models. Furthermore, the side effects of L-Dopa and other alternative treatments are being tested using MPTP models.