Shared from parkinsonsnewstoday.com.
Brain damage in Parkinson’s disease may be driven in part by certain nerve cells working too hard, causing them to accrue damage and die. This suggests that treatments that reduce the activity of these cells may help slow the brain damage that drives the condition.
That’s according to the study, “Chronic hyperactivation of midbrain dopamine neurons causes preferential dopamine neuron degeneration,” which was published in eLife.
In Parkinson’s, the brain cells that produce the signaling molecule that nerves in the brain use to communicate with each other, called the dopaminergic neurons, become dysfunctional and die. Dopaminergic neurons in the part of the brain called the substantia nigra, which is essential for controlling movement, are usually hit harder than the dopamine-making cells in other brain regions. This pattern of nerve damage is an established hallmark of the disease, but it’s not clear exactly why these cells are more vulnerable to Parkinson’s-related damage.