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We're talking about the nervous system this week on Healthwatch. Parkinson's disease is a brain disorder that occurs when the cells in the brain that produce the chemical dopamine are damaged, which interferes with muscle coordination. It causes tremors, stiffness and difficulty with balance and movement. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered how the important cells become damaged in a vicious cycle.
Dr. Philip Thomas, a UT Southwestern physiologist, says the disease involves the accumulation of a protein in an aberrant form. This happens when a long, folded protein in cells unfolds under stress. An enzyme is supposed to then dissolve it completely into harmless bits, but in Parkinson's patients, it only breaks into fragments that serve as "seeds" that encourage other fragments to cluster and form clumps. Those clumps then further suppress the enzyme, so even more clumps form. This knowledge may someday lead to a treatment that stops this vicious cycle.
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July 2005
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