MORPHINE, AND SOME OF ITS ENDOGENOUS SYNTHESIS PRECURSORS IN ANIMALS, FOR PARKINSON´S DISEASE TREATMENT

José Peea-Sasiaín

UNISALUD - Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia

Abstract

Two centuries ago, Sertürner completed his four publications on "morphium." Twenty-five years ago Matsubara and his team proved that parkinsonians make tetrahydropapaveroline (THP also known as norlaudanosoline), codeine and morphine from exogenous levodopa. By the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21^st centuries, Zenk and his teammates showed unequivocally the reality of morphine biosynthesis in man and mouse. They showed that it follows different steps from the biosynthesis by Papaver species up to the R-reticuline intermediate: the stereochemistry and the methylation reactions leading to it in animals must be clarified. From Thebaine onwards only Papaver somniferum L (synonym of Papaver setigerum DC) removes the methyl radical of Thebaine´s methoxy groups to yield morphine by way of codeine or oripavine.

We display the 66-year-old report of Graulich on the astonishing improvement of a 62-year-old parkinsonian woman with the use of morphine hydrochloride when attempting to counteract the undesired effect of other medicaments. There is only another report on the beneficial effect of morphine in two parkinsonian patients treated with it for sciatica while PudMed data base shows almost eighteen hundred recorded reports on apomorphine, a derivative of morphine, and Parkinson´s disease.

The poster shows portraits and intermediate substances worth testing and unsolved steps that need intensive study.