Parkinson’s disease: Can we move in the right direction?

Abstract

What do the worlds’ greatest athlete and a wonderfully creative actor have in common? They both suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Imagine losing the ability to control your own movements! This is not just a reality for Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox, as 2% of the world’s population over 65 suffer from this disease. Terrifyingly, the incidence of Parkinson’s disease is set to double in the next 20 years as people are living longer. In Parkinson’s disease, a very important population of brain cells, known as dopaminergic neurons, die. Let’s imagine these dopaminergic neurons as a tree, with the tree’s roots in the midbrain, located between the spinal cord and brain, and the tree’s branches in the brain. These branches produce dopamine, which allows us to control our movements. We can almost think of dopamine as the ‘fruit’ of this tree. These branches are killed in Parkinson’s disease, and the ...