I wish we had some good news on stroke at least once a year.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=146158&CultureCode=en
Parkinson's disease may start in the gut
Parkinson's disease is strongly linked to the degeneration of the
brain’s movement center. In the last decade, the question of where the
disease begins has led researchers to a different part of the human
anatomy. In 2003, the German neuropathologist Heiko Braak presented a
theory suggesting that the disease begins in the gut and spreads to the
brain. The idea has since, despite vocal critics, gained a lot of
ground. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden now present the first
direct evidence that the disease can actually migrate from the gut to
the brain.
The so-called Braak’s hypothesis proposes that the disease process
begins in the digestive tract and in the brain's center of smell. The
theory is supported by the fact that symptoms associated with digestion
and smell occur very early on in the disease.
Researchers at Lund University have previously mapped the spread of
Parkinson’s in the brain. The disease progression is believed to be
driven by a misfolded protein that clumps together and "infects"
neighboring cells. Professor Jia-Yi Li's research team has now been able
to track this process further, from the gut to the brain in rat models.
The experiment shows how the toxic protein, alpha-synuclein, is
transported from one cell to another before ultimately reaching the
brain’s movement center, giving rise to the characteristic movement
disorders in Parkinson’s disease.
“We have now been able to prove that the disease process actually can
travel from the peripheral nervous system to the central nervous
system, in this case from the wall of the gut to the brain. In the
longer term, this may give us new therapeutic targets to try to slow or
stop the disease at an earlier stage”, says Professor Jia-Yi Li,
research group leader for Neural Plasticity and Repair at Lund University.
The research team will now carry out further studies in which the
mechanisms behind the transport of the harmful protein will be examined
in detail. The current study suggests that the protein is transferred
during nerve cell communication. It is at this point of interaction that
the researchers want to intervene in order to put a stop to the further
spread of the disease.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00401-014-1343-6
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