A subtype of brain cells that die in patients with Parkinson’s. This phenomenon was identified by a team of scientists affiliated with various institutions in the United States. During their research they exploited a sequencing technique ofRNA to analyze brain cells in the substantia nigra and then compared some types they found in the brains of patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s with healthy subjects to identify differences.
Ernest Arenaswith the Karolinska Institutetde in Sweden, published an article on News & Views in the same journal issue outlining how the single-cell study of brain cells was developed.
The results of the Research have been published in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease: patients have problems with balance, difficulty speaking and tremors. To date, there is still no cure, but some drug therapies are able to intervene on the symptoms. Previous research has shown that the disease occurs when nerve cells in the substantia nigra (located in the midbrain) deteriorate for unknown reasons. As a result, less dopamine is generated.
As more cells stop working, the symptoms get worse. In this new research, the team of researchers carefully and more closely studied nerve cells in the substantia nigra to find out which of them die in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
The researchers used a recently developed single-cell RNA technique that sequences single cells in a given tissue sample. Scientists used it to determine which genes in cells in the substantia nigra were making proteins and then classified them into 10 subtypes.
In a second step of the research, they looked at brain samples extracted at the time of their death from 10 patients who had had Parkinson’s disease (or Lewy body dementia). The scientists then performed the same type of RNA sequencing on all of the samples and also on multiple brain samples collected from healthy people after death. Experts compared samples from both groups for differences and found one of the shrunken brain cell subtypes in Parkinson’s disease patients, being the most affected by this phenomenon.
Regarding research in Italy, Professor Alberto Albanesehead of the Neurology Unit 1 of theHumanitas Hospital of Milan he has declared: “Important news for Parkinson’s patients will arrive within a year. Until now the drugs treated the symptoms but in the near future they will block the evolution of the disease “.
“[Il Parkinson] it begins with symptoms that, at first, do not concern the motor system. For example, some patients experience a reduction in smell or a sleep disturbance Rem. In general, someone with a neuro-degenerative disease in the REM sleep phase does not control movement. Often it is the partner who notices this as he is disturbed during the night“.
The causes of Parkinson’s disease are to be found in a low dopamine level, an indispensable mediator for the correct transmission of chemical signals between neurons. To date, drug therapies were designed to increase or compensate for the function of dopat: “[ I farmaci] they had many side effects, such as stimulating some normally unexpressed drives. Over time there has been an evolution of drugs that has reduced some side effects including that of heart valve thickening “.
Parkinson’s disease is generated by both genetic and environmental causes, with several genes involved to varying degrees: “Research is moving in the direction of personalized care. It was understood that there are ‘many’ Parkinson’s diseases and that treatments must be optimized for the individual patient ”.
The next two years will be crucial for strategies aimed at stopping the disease: “There will be news from three different lines of research. The first is that genetics. Trials of genetically modified viruses will begin on humans capable of inserting genes that treat symptoms and perhaps block the evolution of the disease“.
Hopes also from two other lines of research “They will also come monoclonal antibodies able to fight the accumulation of proteins, thealpha-synuclein, in particular inclusions of neurons. Finally, more traditional drugs will come than they will fight the decrease of dopamine in a much more refined way than in the past “.
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