New Research Could Pave Way for Better Parkinson’s Treatment

New research into how Parkinson’s disease manifests may provide an avenue for new treatments.

Parkinson’s disease, which affects up to one million people in the United States and does not have a cure, is thought to start with the destruction of neurons that produce dopamine. 

Dopamine is most commonly associated with feelings of pleasure, however, it’s also necessary to regulate movement in the brain. Without this chemical, patients experience the characteristic stiffness, erratic movement, tremors and balance problems of Parkinson’s disease. 

A new study, published Friday in the journal Neuron from a team at Northwestern university, suggests that the earliest sign of genetic Parkinson’s disease may not be the destruction of the entire neurons, but the failure of one specific protein. 

This research provides a bridge between two known areas: that some genes make people more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease, and that Parkinson’s is caused by the degeneration of neurons that make dopamine. 

Neurons communicate through something called a synapse, or the meeting point between two cells. Researchers now think that if they could target synapses that aren’t working, they may be able to develop better strategies for addressing Parkinson’s earlier. In other words, they could create effective drugs that help stop the disease before it progresses.  

Neurons communicate by sending chemicals, like dopamine, through these meeting points. However, the researchers found a protein that resulted in a toxic form of dopamine building up in the neuron. 

With this new knowledge, new drugs targeted at fixing this pathway may be developed, according to the study authors. 
“Based on these findings, we hypothesize that targeting dysfunctional synapses before the neurons are degenerated may represent a better therapeutic strategy,” lead author Dimitri Krainc, M.D. Ph.D., chair of neurology at Northwestern University, said in a press release.