Amantadine and L-DOPA-induced Dyskinesia in Early Parkinson's Disease

Traditionally amantadine is used at the beginning of Parkinson Disease (PD) treatment in the early stages of the disease, as a modest antiparkinsonian symptomatic treatment. This treatment is usually maintained for no more than the first few months of management, before resorting to drugs deemed more effective as dopamine agonists and lévo-DOPA (L-DOPA). A more modern use of the drug is at a more advanced stage of PD when dyskinesia are already established and become disabling for the patients. There is no data between these two extremes of life stages of Parkinsonism. However, the mechanisms of action of amantadine and the pathophysiology of the motor complications induced by L-DOPA, in particular dyskinesia suggest that the early and prolonged use of amantadine in the early years of management, before L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia have already emerged, should have a positive impact on long-term occurrence and fate of these symptoms, possibly through a glutamatergic mechanism of brain plasticity-of the "disease modification" type.