- Recently, in cooperation with American colleagues we were able to demonstrate that Minocycline possesses a high neuroprotective potency in the MPTP-Mouse model, (an animal-model of Parkinson’s disease, in which a degeneration of neuronal cells in the basal ganglia occurs (Lin et al., 2001; Du et al., 2001). Dependent on the applied dosage (30-120 mg/kg), a neuroprotection of up to 77% could be observed. In our results we could prove, that NO as well as Caspase-1 play an important role in the pathogenesis of cell death. Both, the expression of iNOS and the activation of Caspase-1 could be blocked in the presence of Minocycline in the animal-model and in further cell culture trials. In addition, there was a decrease of inflammatory microglia activation in the examined brain sections in the presence of Minocycline. Similar results could be presented from the study group Przedborski (Wu et al., 2002).