Hi guys my name is helen gardner and i’m going to be talking about carbidopa used to treat parkinson’s disease so parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements such as shaking stiffness and difficulty with balance and coordination symptoms usually begin gradually and then they worsen over time and as the disease
Progresses people may have difficulty walking and talking so these are just some parkinson’s symptoms there’s tremor in the hands arms legs jaw or head muscle stiffness where muscle remains contracted for a long time slowness of movement impaired balance and coordination and sometimes leading to falls and then other symptoms may include depression and other
Emotional changes difficulty swallowing chewing and speaking urinary problems or constipation or skin problems and the symptoms and parkinson’s and the rate of progression differ among individuals really symptoms of this disease are subtle and occur gradually for example people may feel mild tremors or have difficulty just getting out of a chair they may notice
That they speak too softly or that their handwriting is slow and looks cramped or small friends or family members may be the first to notice changes in someone with early parkinson’s and then they may see that that person’s face lacks expression in animation that the person does not move an arm or leg normally so typically it starts in one limb on one side of the
Body and then will worsen over time and then carbidopa um is a drug given to people with parkinson’s disease in order to inhibit peripheral metabolism of levodopa um and it allows a greater proportion of peripheral levodopa to cross the blood-brain barrier for the central nervous system effect um this property is significant in that it allows a greater proportion
Of leave it opened across the blood brain barrier it remains the most effective drug to treat parkinson’s disease in addition to helping prevent nausea carbadopa prevents levodopa from being converted into dopamine prematurely into the bloodstream and allows more of it to get to the brain and levodopa is in the class of medications called central nervous system
Agents it works by being converted into dopamine in the brain and then carbidopa is in the class of medications called um decarboxylase inhibitors and it works by preventing levodopa from being broken down before it can reach the brain and then this also allows for a lower dose of levodopa which causes less nausea and vomiting and then x-ray crystallography can
Be used and it’s pretty much an experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal and then the crystalline structure causes a beam of x-rays to diffract into many different directions and then the aim of x-ray crystallography is to obtain a three-dimensional molecular structure from a crystal and it’s a purified sample at a high
Concentration it’s crystallized and the crystals are exposed to an x-ray beam and then this shows the chimera of the crystal structure of dopa decarboxylase in complex with the inhibitor carbidopa and um the crystal structure of dopa decarboxylase um with the inhibitor carbidopa dopa deep carbolase also known as ddc is responsible for the synthesis of the key
Neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin and then it’s c10h14n2o4 and then this is just the molecular structure so i hope that summed up a little bit about the carbidopa and how it’s used to treat parkinson’s disease you
Transcribed from video
Carbidopa used to treat Parkinson’s Disease By Michael Spence