Abstract
The pharmacological effects of amantadine were studied and compared with those of trihexyphenidyl, promethazine and imipramine. Amantadine was not inhibitory to the tremor induced by tremorine and oxotremorine in mice, but was inhibitory to the catatonia induced by neuroleptics in rats. Amantadine potentiated the effect of L-dopa in motor activity and the effect of methamphetamine in Sidman type conditioned avoidance response. In these effects, amantadine was essentially as active as other anti-parkinson drugs and imipramine. The effect of amantadine was one-tenth that of other antiparkinson drugs in inhibiting dopamine uptake into the striatal synaptosomes of rat. However, amantadine was more effective regarding dopamine uptake into the aminergic neuron terminals in the iris and median eminence of reserpinized rats.