Scientists from the University at Buffalo found a new way to develop future treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD), a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement and often includes tremors.
The research is published in Molecular Psychiatry and was conducted by Jian Feng et al.
In this study, the team found a method to differentiate human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to A9 dopamine neurons (A9 DA), which are lost in Parkinson’s disease.
These neurons are pacemakers that continuously fire action potentials regardless of excitatory inputs from other neurons.
Their pacemaking property is very important to their function and underlies their vulnerability in Parkinson’s disease.
This exciting breakthrough is a critical step forward in efforts to better understand Parkinson’s disease and how to treat it.
There are many different types of dopamine neurons in the human brain, and each type is responsible for different brain functions.
Nigral dopamine neurons, also known as the A9 DA neurons, are responsible for controlling voluntary movements. The loss of these neurons causes the movement symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Scientists have been trying hard to generate these neurons from human pluripotent stem cells to study Parkinson’s disease and develop better therapies.
The researchers have succeeded in making A9 dopamine neurons from human-induced pluripotent stem cells. It means that they can now generate these neurons from any PD patients to study their disease.
In addition to their unique morphology, the A9 DA neurons are pacemakers—they fire action potentials continuously regardless of synaptic input.
The team says pacemaking is an important feature and vulnerability of A9 DA neurons.
Now that we can generate A9 DA pacemakers from any patient, it is possible to use these neurons to screen for compounds that may protect their loss in PD.
It is also possible to test whether these cells are a better candidate for transplantation therapy of PD.
The team says there is no objective diagnostic test of Parkinson’s disease, and when PD is diagnosed by clinical symptoms, it is already too late. The loss of nigral DA neurons has already been going on for at least a decade
There was previously no way to make human dopamine neurons from a PD patient so the team could study these neurons to find out what goes wrong.
If you care about Parkinson’s disease, please read studies about a new early sign of Parkinson’s disease, and why exercise may help treat Parkinson’s disease
For more information about Parkinson’s disease, please see recent studies about this stuff in berries may prevent and reverse Parkinson’s disease and results showing common high blood pressure drugs may prevent Parkinson’s, dementia.
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