‘Energy loss in brain cells may trigger Parkinson’s’ – Times of India

CHENNAI: Energy deficiency in certain brain cells could be the trigger for the neurodegenerative disorder Parkinson’s Disease (PD), scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have found using a computation model of the human brain. If drug makers develop medicines to improve efficiency of energy delivery into the cells, there may be a cure for the disease, they announced here on Wednesday.
The findings of this research have been published in the prestigious peer-reviewed science journal Nature Scientific Reports.

Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative and progressive disorder that affects nerve cells in deep parts of the brain called basal ganglia and substantia nigra. Nerve cells in the substantia nigra produce the neurotransmitter dopamine and are responsible for relaying messages that plan and control body movement. When 80% of dopamine is lost, symptoms such as tremor, slowness of movement, stiffness, and balance problems manifest, affecting quality of life.
It is the second most prominent neurodegenerative disease around the world after Alzheimer’s disease. “Until now, doctors did not know why the dopamine-producing nerve cells of the substantia nigra begin to die off in some individuals,” said Professor V Srinivasa Chakravarthy of the department of biotechnology and head of Computational Neuroscience Laboratory at IIT-M. “A series of computation studies shows that when the nerve cells of the brain are starved of adequate oxygenated blood, the energy level reduces and so does their efficiency. It affects the protein called alpha-synuclein, reactive oxygen species production, and alters calcium and dopamine levels. Each of these are characteristic subcellular changes in Parkinson’s disease,” he said. The loss of neurons in a small nucleus like substantia nigra affects all the major domains of brain function – sensory-motor, cognitive, affective, and autonomous.
The computational model was developed by Vignayanandam Ravindernath Muddapu, who completed his PhD at IIT Madras recently. Parkinson’s disease patients are now given medicines to manage symptoms, but a cure demands an understanding of the root cause of substantia nigra cell loss. “We plan to develop a therapeutic computational test bench for the disease. This will link cellular-level dysfunctions to behaviourallevel abnormalities. In the next five years, we are hoping that this type of framework will help in providing personalized medicine for Parkinson’s disease patients rather than the currently employed trial and error approach,” he said.