Stress and inflammation may help trigger Parkinson’s disease, study finds Aitrend

Environmental factors like prolonged stress, chronic inflammation and toxic exposure could play a key role in triggering Parkinson’s diseaseeven in people without genetic risk, according to a Canadian study.

A team from McGill University in Montreal published an article last month in Natural neuroscience this may have uncovered a new link between the immune system and the development of Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers have discovered that an immune response plays a crucial role in the formation of clumps of toxic proteins, called Lewy bodies, within brain cells, contributing to disease progression.

“Our results suggest that anyone can develop Parkinson’s disease if exposed to an appropriate environment, and that a genetic predisposition to the disease may therefore not be necessary,” said the author. principal Peter McPherson, professor of neurology and neurosurgery and of anatomy and cellular biology at the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital. .

“This marks a significant step forward in understanding key aspects of Parkinson’s disease and other neurological diseases,” he said in a statement. Friday press release.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder that affects movement, often causing tremors, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and coordination. It is also the fastest growing neurological disease in the world, and this is likely due to an aging population as well as better tools to diagnose the disease, said Angelica Asis, vice president of research at Parkinson Canada.

“There are movement symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease. So the hand tremors, the rigidity, as well as some slowness of movements,” she told Global News. “But (symptoms also include) constipation, cognitive problems such as difficulty with multitasking and brain fog, sleep problems, hallucinations and depression.”

More than 100,000 Canadians live with Parkinson’s disease and 30 more are diagnosed every day. As the population ages, the incidence of Parkinson’s disease is expected to increase and by 2034, 150,048 Canadians are predicted to have Parkinson’s disease, she added.

The disease is coming when certain brain cells, called dopamine-producing neurons, begin to become damaged and die. These cells are essential for smooth movement and coordination. When they are lost, it leads to tremors, stiffness and difficulty moving, which are common symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

The exact reason for this situation is not yet known, but researchers think it’s a combination genetic and environmental factors, such as pesticides, air pollution and industrial chemicals.

There is currently no cure, but there is a treatment availableknown as dopamine replacement therapy. However, Asis said there are no approved therapies to slow or stop the neurodegenerative process.

That’s why researchers at McGill University hope their findings will pave the way for future treatments.

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Lewy bodies are abnormal clumps of proteins found in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease. However, until now, they could only be studied in human neurons after death, limiting researchers’ ability to fully understand their role in disease, according to the study.

For the first time, researchers were able to create laboratory-grown Lewy bodies in human neurons derived from stem cells. They discovered that a combination of a-synuclein and immune activation was crucial for their formation, specifically targeting dopamine-producing neurons (the brain cells affected by Parkinson’s disease).

This suggests that factors that trigger the immune system, such as chronic inflammation, exposure to toxins, or prolonged stress, might not only correlate with Parkinson’s disease, as previous research has found, but also promote its development, the researchers indicated.

Asis said exploring the link between inflammation and the development of Parkinson’s disease is an important piece of the larger puzzle surrounding the disease’s many unknowns.

“Inflammation is understudied and poorly understood in terms of the role it plays in neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease,” she said.

“But now they’re starting to see inflammation-related cells that are part of this pathway and driving some of these disease processes. So if a person has ongoing or increased inflammation and develops Parkinson’s disease, it’s thought that this inflammatory process could play a very important and not very well understood role.

Researchers also discovered that Lewy bodies contain additional cell parts. This new understanding of their composition, along with the ability to study their formation in real time, could give drug developers new targets to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease, the researchers added.

“The results support previous research showing that an immune response plays an important role in the development of Parkinson’s disease,” Armin Bayati, a doctoral student in McPherson’s lab and first author of the study, said in the press release. .

“Future studies should focus on understanding how inflammation caused by an overexcited immune system causes the formation of Lewy bodies when combined with α-synuclein.”

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