Around a million Americans are living with Parkinson’s disease, the neurological condition that greatly, and most often progressively, affects the dopamine-producing powerhouse area of the brain, the substantia nigra. While there is no cure, medication is generally aimed at substituting or boosting dopamine, which can help lessen the movement-impairment that comes with the debilitating disease.
Studies recently have pivoted towards investigating specific cellular mechanisms involved in the disease’s progression, such as genetic mutations that prevent debris cleanup in the brain, or targeting other protein clumps.
The latest discovery out of Northwestern Medicine has found that the intracellular communication breakdown between lysosomes and mitochondria is not just key to the progression of genetic Parkinson’s but could be also be a target for new therapies to treat the debilitating disease.
