Parkinson’s Disease

Introduction/background

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most frequent movement disorder and the second most common neurodegenerative disease (Bueler 2009). Over 1% of the entire population over the age of 60, and up to 5% of age 80, is affected by PD (Wood-Kaczmar, Gandhi et al. 2006). The pathogenesis of PD remains unclear, but can be categorized as sporadic, being the most common form, and Mendelian, which accounts for 5-10% of all PD cases (Guo 2008). The studies of Mendelian onset of PD have lead to the identification of five genes being linked to this neurodegenerative disease (Guo 2008). α-Synuclein (SNCA) and Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) mediate autosomal dominant forms of PD. PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1), PARKIN, and DJ-1 mediate autosomal recessive forms and have been associated with sporadic cases due to mutations (Dodson and Guo 2007). The clinical symptoms of sporadic and Mendelian forms are similar, and consist of the manifestation of tremors, progressive rigidity, bradykinesia, and gait abnormalities (Van Laar and Berman 2009).

The progressive dopaminegeric (DA) neuronal loss in the substantia nigra, a site mainly responsible for dopamine metabolism and iron content the in brain, are pathologically associated to the first 3 symptoms. PD however, affects non-DA neurons in the brain as well, which may cause patients to present cases of depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorders before their manifestations of motor symptoms (Guo 2008). The current medical treatment of PD focuses on dopamine replacement and unfortunately poorly alleviates global symptoms of PD, in particular DA-independent symptoms (Guo 2008).

The complex disease mechanism of PD requires that new global treatments and...

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...rogress report 2 due

Week 10 – Finalization of experimental results and 20 minute seminar speech

Works Cited

Bueler, H. (2009). "Impaired mitochondrial dynamics and function in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease." Exp Neurol.

Deng, H., M. W. Dodson, et al. (2008). "The Parkinson's disease genes pink1 and parkin promote mitochondrial fission and/or inhibit fusion in Drosophila." Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 105(38): 14503-8.

Dodson, M. W. and M. Guo (2007). "Pink1, Parkin, DJ-1 and mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson's disease." Curr Opin Neurobiol 17(3): 331-7.

Guo, M. (2008). BWF Translational Research.

Van Laar, V. S. and S. B. Berman (2009). "Mitochondrial dynamics in Parkinson's disease." Exp Neurol.

Wood-Kaczmar, A., S. Gandhi, et al. (2006). "Understanding the molecular causes of Parkinson's disease." Trends Mol Med 12(11): 521-8.