Movement disorders articles within Nature

Featured

  • Outlook |

    Sleep disturbances may be an early sign of neurodegenerative diseases — but could sleep deficits cause these conditions in the first place?

    • Moheb Costandi
  • News & Views |

    Neuronal networks in the brain that develop early in life underlie our ability to learn, remember and communicate. Genetic defects that perturb the fine-tuning of such neuronal connectivity can cause disease.

    • Peter Scheiffele
    •  & Asim A. Beg
  • Letter |

    It has long been thought that motor control is achieved through the balanced activity of two distinct pathways through the basal ganglia that have opposing effects, but this has never been functionally verified. These authors directly test this hypothesis with optogenetic activation of different populations of mouse striatal neurons, and not only trace functional connectivity but demonstrate opposing effects on motor behaviour in a parkinsonian model.

    • Alexxai V. Kravitz
    • , Benjamin S. Freeze
    •  & Anatol C. Kreitzer
  • News & Views |

    Defects in mitochondria are implicated in Parkinson's disease. Study of a quality-control pathway involving the proteins PINK1 and Parkin provides further clues about the mechanism involved.

    • Asa Abeliovich