Neurotoxicity and possible roles of aspartic acid, glutamic acid and GABA in some neurologic disorders

In this study, the role of excitatory amino acids ; aspartic (ASP) and glutamic acid (GLU), and GABA is defined on the basis of accumulated results obtained in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from 88 patients with neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD) (n=20), cerebrovascular disorder (CVD) (n=16), multiple sclerosis (MS) (n=20), tuberculous meningitis (TBM) (n=14) and aseptic meningitis (AM) (n=18). These results are compared with data from healthy subjects (n=14). The results show significant CSF increase of ASP ,GLU and GABA in all these groups except in MS patients where decrease in ASP, GLU and GABA was observed. There is a linear relationship between CSF GLU and nitrite in PD, CVD and TBM patients suggesting these two parameters are interrelated, promoting the possibility for the design of therapeutic approaches consisting of GLU release inhibitors and EAA antagonists and free radical scavengers for treatment of these neurologic disorders with effectivity.