Substantia nigra

In 1817 James Parkinson introduced Parkinson’s disease after having six patients experiencing involuntary unsteady motions that didn’t related to other disease out at the time. (Lees et al 2009). Parkinson’s disease affects the central nervous system and it leads to severe troubles with body motions. Symptoms include shaking, stiffness, slowed body movements, unstable posture and trouble walking (Singh and Pillay 2007). Now 200 years later this disease is the most common movement disorder in the…

Everyday Helga walks in the morning with her neighbor. Each day she is noticing that she has to stop sooner because her legs feel as if she ran a mile. Helga didn't think much of it until her neighbor tells her that she's walking half as fast as she usually does, but in reality she feels exhausted. How can she be walking slow? If you have this degenerative disease, weakness in your legs is the first sign. Most people do not realize they have Parkinson's because the earlier symptoms are very…

Mackenzie Johnson BIO 220-6 October 14, 2015 Parkinson’s Disease The topic that has been chosen for my research paper is Idiopathic Parkinsonism or Parkinson’s disease (PD). Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative brain disorder that typically will progress slowly (3). It affects the nervous system of mostly elderly people and there is no cure for it. The major symptoms of PD include slowed movement, muscle stiffness, and tremors. “On average, about 1 to 2 out of 1,000 people have Parkinson’s”…

In our brains we have two major areas that are responsible for controlling our movements, these areas are the substantia nigra pars compacta and the basal ganglia. The substantia nigra pars compacta is responsible for producing dopamine, which controls the transmission of messages that initiate and control movement and balance. The basal ganglion is composed of numerous subcortical nuclei, which are crucial for controlling fine motor movements. Unfortunately, these areas of the brain are…

Understanding the Symptoms and Treatments of Parkinson’s Disease In this day and age, many people are affected with a wide range of diseases that can potentially last for a few months to a lifetime. However, there are a few factors that can alter the outcome of a disease depending on an individual’s environment and wellbeing. Some of the factors involved includes: age, gender, and genetics. It is commonly known that as we age throughout life, we have a higher risk to be prone to more than one…

A number of non-motor features are known to precede motor manifestation of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Depression has long been recognized as a frequent accompanying up to 10-45% of PD patients, in fact, there have been several case reports of depression preceding the onset of PD. It has became clear that PD can have a prodromal stage, a period during which neurodegeneration has begun, but motor signs permitting classical diagnosis are not defined. Studies have suggested that depressive symptoms…

there are treatments to reduce the symptoms by medications and surgery. WHAT IS PARKINSON’S DISEASE? It is a brain disorder affecting brain cells in the brain. Parkinson’s affects neurons in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra that produce dopamine (dopamine neurons). As dopamine level falls, people develop uncontrollable shaking (tremor) in their hands and body. SYMPTOMS: The symptoms vary from person to person…

membrane fractions of PD midbrain (Timmons et al., 2009). PKB and its phosphorylation at Ser473 is also consistently reduced in the dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra with loss of these neurons and hence are consequently reduced in PD. Another study has confirmed reduced phosphorylation of PKB at both Thr308 and Ser473 in substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons in PD patients (Malagelada et al., 2008). It suggests that reduced phosphorylation of PKB is restricted to dopaminergic neurons…

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder, and as the name suggests it’s the deterioration of the brain over time, meaning as time passes by the disease will get worse. Parkinson’s disease causes malfunctions within the brain and its nerve cells called neurons. The brain is the control center of the human body and it is responsible for movement, coordination, regulation of organ function, our five senses, and the ability to produce and regulate hormones. The brain is accountable for…

This section introduces the background of gene therapy in Parkinson’s Disease, especially on brain cells targeting therapy. It provides the rationale for further proposal of brain cell targeted PD therapy based on Ultrasound-meditated microbubble delivered AAV vector or RNAi. 1.Parkinson’s Disease, a common CNS disorder with no adequate treatment in pharmacological approaches Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive, central nervous system (CNS) disorder, belonging to a group of conditions…