Naltrexone, an opiate antagonist, fails to modify motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease

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Abstract
One month of adjunct treatment with naltrexone (100 mg/day) was compared with placebo in a double‐blind, randomized, cross‐over design in two groups of patients with Parkinson's disease. The first group was composed of 10 patients with a moderate motor impairment insufficiently controlled by monotherapy with bromocriptine. The second group was composed of eight patients with L‐dopa‐induced peak‐dose dyskinesia. Naltrexone as compared with placebo did not demonstrate any significant change in motor function in either group. These negative clinical results do not support a significant role of endogenous opioid systems in the pathophysiology of motor impairment in Parkinson's disease.