Parkinson’s disease is a disorder that damages the neurons in the nervous system – the cells that transmit information throughout the body. There is currently no cure for the disease, but new research from King’s College London could provide a clue to further understanding the disease.
There are many causes for Parkinson’s disease, including environmental factors like pollution and pesticide use, side effects of certain medications, other conditions and genes. Genes are parts of our DNA that have instructions for our body’s functioning.
Symptoms include shaking, stiffness of muscles, slowing down of movement and difficulties with balance. It typically begins to affect people over the age of 60, with men having a greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
Physiotherapy, medication, and in extreme cases, surgery, can help manage its symptoms and improve quality of life.
Vici syndrome is an extremely rare childhood brain disorder that causes severe problems in the organs, including the brain, heart and gastrointestinal tract. However, most people affected by Vici syndrome do not survive past childhood.
Upon noticing that children with Vici syndrome had relatives who were more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease, researchers at KCL, along with the University of Cologne, University College London and the Max-Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, decided to study this relationship further. The study investigated the EPG5 genes of 211 people and found that this gene linked Vici syndrome and Parkinson’s disease.
People with certain variants of the EPG5 gene, although they didn’t develop and show symptoms of typical Vici syndrome, were more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. They also often had problems with speech, movement and learning, shedding light on a milder presentation of Vici syndrome, which has not been studied thus far.
Parkinson’s disease is particularly difficult to detect early on, as there isn’t a clear understanding of the causes behind the disorder, and there are currently no tests for diagnosis.
However, studies into the genetic basis of Parkinson’s disease and any disorders it may be linked to provide a promising way to improve early detection, develop a wider variety of treatments and further the understanding of how the disease progresses.
With such advances in research, there is increasing hope that Parkinson’s disease may become a far more manageable, and possibly even a treatable, condition.
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