Talk:Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research/Magazine Section/Joining the Dots

Shaker (talk)

Since this article was written, further research has led to a broadening of this hypothesis. PD risk can be viewed as the biological equivalent of a three element fruit machine. Each day that passes is another pull on the handle and, if you get three lemons in a row, you initiate the P D condition.

The first element is the result of another, larger lottery – your complement of genes. PD_Gene (Jan. 2013) lists 3446 polymorphisms derived from Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), which confer a positive or negative risk for PD.  (Some of these may act in combination.)

The second element is infectious disease. Rick Reverett has cleverly assembled the pointers to Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) attacking the neuroprotective immune system and priming DA cells for PD. This could even happen prenatally. (The final links in this hypothesis await proof).

H.V. et al has published evidence that mumps, scarlet fever, influenza, whooping cough and herpes simples may have the same effect, while De Chiara et al evaluated connections between infective conditions and neurodegenerative diseases, has  found that some mutations of the flu virus might be responsible and gone on to draw inferences for other neurological diseases.

The third element is an environmental trigger to a PD pathology. These might be rare but it only takes a single wayward cell to be affected to start the process. There might be several pathologies, but the most common is the one that involves the abnormal aggregation of the ubiquitous alpha synuclein protein. Sometimes you may not have to wait for all three elements to be in place: a severe head trauma or a good dose of MPTP will do the trick without waiting for the other two.