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Missing pieces in the Parkinson's disease puzzle

Nature Medicine volume 16, pages 653–661 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative process characterized by numerous motor and nonmotor clinical manifestations for which effective, mechanism-based treatments remain elusive. Here we discuss a series of critical issues that we think researchers need to address to stand a better chance of solving the different challenges posed by this pathology.

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Figure 1: Schematic summary of established etiopathogenic mechanisms and interactions in the dopaminergic cells of the substantia nigra in Parkinson's disease.
Figure 2: Striatal dopamine innervation assessed by 18F-dopa positron emission tomography.
Figure 3: Distribution of Lewy bodies in Parkinson's disease.

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Acknowledgements

This article is the result of a meeting held by the authors in the village of Marcalain (Navarra, Spain) with the support of an unrestricted educational grant from Lundbeck Spain. R. Coll, J. Brenninkmeijer and M. Hickery (Lundbeck) assisted on logistical aspects of the meeting, but the company had no role whatsoever in the content of the meeting and the scope of this article. We are particularly thankful to the Idoate family for their hospitality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Clínica Universitaria and Medical School of Navarra, Neuroscience Centre, Center for Applied Medical Research, Pamplona, Spain

    Jose A Obeso & Maria C Rodriguez-Oroz

  2. Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED), Instituto Carlos III, Ministerio de Investigación y Ciencias, Madrid, Spain

    Jose A Obeso, Maria C Rodriguez-Oroz, Concepcion Marin & Manuel Rodriguez

  3. Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Christopher G Goetz & Jeffrey H Kordower

  4. Laboratori de Neurologia Experimental, Àrea de Neurociències, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, University of Barcelona and CIBERNED, Barcelona, Spain

    Concepcion Marin

  5. Departamento de Fisiologia, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de La Laguna and CIBERNED, Tenerife, Spain

    Manuel Rodriguez

  6. Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l'Institut du Cerveau et de Moelle Epiniére, Paris, France

    Etienne C Hirsch

  7. Department of Neuroscience, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, USA

    Matthew Farrer

  8. University Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London, UK

    Anthony H V Schapira

  9. Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute and the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Glenda Halliday

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  1. Jose A Obeso
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Correspondence to Jose A Obeso.

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Competing interests

J.A.O. has served on the Advisory Board of GlaxoSmithKline (UK) and received honoraria for lecturing at meetings organized by GlaxoSmithKline (Spain), Lundbeck-Teva and UCB. M.C.R.-O. participates in the Advisory Board of UCB Spain and receives payment for lectures and travel accommodation payments for scientific meetings from GlaxoSmithKline, UCB, Lundbeck and Medtronic and for teaching courses from Medtronic. C.G.G., as of the 12 months ending September 2009, is a consultant to or member of Advisory Boards, with associated honoraria, for Asubio, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Impax Pharmaceuticals, i3 Research, Ingenix, Juvantia Pharmaceuticals, Neurim Pharmaceuticals, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Osmotica Pharmaceutical, Oxford Biomedica, Santhera Pharmaceuticals, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceuticals, United Biosource Corporation and UCB. J.K. is a founding scientist and Scientific Advisory Board member of Ceregene Inc. A.S. has received honoraria from Lundbeck-Teva, Boehringer-Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline and Orion-Novartis for advice on Parkinson's disease drug research and development and for educational symposia. E.H., G.H., M.R. and C.M. report no conflicts of interest.

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Obeso, J., Rodriguez-Oroz, M., Goetz, C. et al. Missing pieces in the Parkinson's disease puzzle. Nat Med 16, 653–661 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2165

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