Parkinson's Disease Pathogenesis
The continuous loss of dopaminergic neurons is one of the pathogenic hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD) in the substantia nigra (SN).
SNCA may serve to integrate presynaptic signaling and membrane trafficking. Defects in SNCA have been implicated in the Parkinson's disease pathogenesis. SNCA peptides are a major component of amyloid plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Alternatively, spliced transcripts encoding different isoforms have been identified for this gene
A study demonstrated the importance of the SNCA locus for the etiology of Parkinson's disease in Latinos. By leveraging the demographic history of a cohort via admixture mapping, they identified two potential PD risk loci that merit further study 1).
Alterations in thalamic nuclei volumes and the intrinsic thalamic network in patients with PD differed based on their predominant symptoms. These findings might be related to the underlying Parkinson's disease pathogenesis and suggest that PD is a heterogeneous syndrome 2).