PD Guide
Neurogenic Pathways
There is some evidence that PD could be due to altered neurogenesis or inappropriate axonal connections during development. There is clear evidence that new neurons can be generated in the adult brain, in particular within the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and subventricular regions of the forebrain. More relevant for Parkinson’s disease, there are reports of ongoing neurogenesis within the substantia nigra (Zhao et al., 2003), although these findings have not been confirmed by others (Frielingsdorf et al., 2004). Therapeutically, inducing endogenous neurogenesis has been proposed as one means by which to effectively repair damaged tissues, including the loss of dopamine neurons in Parkinson’s disease.
Reference:
Zhao M, Momma S, Delfani K, Carlen M, Cassidy RM, Johansson CB, et al. Evidence for neurogenesis in the adult mammalian substantia nigra. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2003;100(13):7925-30.
Frielingsdorf H, Schwarz K, Brundin P, Mohapel P. No evidence for new dopaminergic neurons in the adult mammalian substantia nigra. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2004;101(27):10177-82.
Responses:
Reference:
Lesnick TG, Papapetropoulos S, Mash DC, Ffrench-Mullen J, Shehadeh L, de Andrade M, et al. A genomic pathway approach to a complex disease: axon guidance and Parkinson disease. PLoS Genet. 2007;3(6):e98.
Lesnick TG, Sorenson EJ, Ahlskog EJ, Henley JR, Shehadeh L, Papapetropoulos S, et al. Beyond Parkinson disease: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and the axon guidance pathway. PLoS ONE. 2008;3(1):e1449.
Srinivasan BS, Doostzadeh J, Absalan F, Mohandessi S, Jalili R, Bigdeli S, et al. Whole genome survey of coding SNPs reveals a reproducible pathway determinant of Parkinson disease. Hum Mutat. 2009;30(2):228-38.
Evangelou E, Maraganore DM, Annesi G, Brighina L, Brice A, Elbaz A, et al. Non-replication of association for six polymorphisms from meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of Parkinson's disease: Large-scale collaborative study. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2009.