Emerging Treatment Approaches for Parkinson's Disease.
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Publication Date
2018Journal Title
Front Neurosci
ISSN
1662-4548
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Volume
12
Pages
693
Language
eng
Type
Article
Physical Medium
Electronic-eCollection
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Stoker, T., Torsney, K. M., & Barker, R. (2018). Emerging Treatment Approaches for Parkinson's Disease.. Front Neurosci, 12 693. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00693
Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, manifesting as a characteristic movement disorder with a number of additional non-motor features. The pathological hallmark of PD is the presence of intra-neuronal aggregates of α-synuclein (Lewy bodies). The movement disorder of PD occurs largely due to loss of dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra, resulting in striatal dopamine depletion. There are currently no proven disease modifying treatments for PD, with management options consisting mainly of dopaminergic drugs, and in a limited number of patients, deep brain stimulation. Long-term use of established dopaminergic therapies for PD results in significant adverse effects, and there is therefore a requirement to develop better means of restoring striatal dopamine, as well as treatments that are able to slow progression of the disease. A number of exciting treatments have yielded promising results in pre-clinical and early clinical trials, and it now seems likely that the landscape for the management of PD will change dramatically in the short to medium term future. Here, we discuss the promising regenerative cell-based and gene therapies, designed to treat the dopaminergic aspects of PD whilst limiting adverse effects, as well as novel approaches to reducing α-synuclein pathology.
Sponsorship
The authors acknowledge financial support from the following organisations: Wellcome Trust Stem Cell Institute (Cambridge), Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre and the Cure Parkinson’s Trust.
Funder references
Medical Research Council (MC_PC_12009)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00693
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/286244
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