Scientists study brain cells affected by Parkinson’s disease to find cure

Science is continuously striving to make headway in the medical field and find out how dreaded diseases work and what can be their cure. Neurobiologists Tushar Kamath and Abdulraouf Abdulraouf from the Broad Institute led a team that studied cells of the brain taken from persons who have died due to Parkinson’s disease or dementia and juxtaposed them with those from unaffected persons as per a report in sciencealert.com.

The team was able to spot out certain brain cells that died due to the disease and also what made them susceptible to death. The “highly susceptible” found made them the prime target for therapeutic intervention while the research also brought into limelight how genetic risk plays a role in the disease.

A neurodegenerative disease which is ongoing in nature – Parkinson’s attributes include movements which are uncontrollable like tremors, difficulties in speech, and problems of balance that turn worse with passage of time. The reason for this is the harm caused to nerve cells that generate dopamine – a vital messenger that controls movements of the body and moods.

This destruction of the neurons is a special feature of the disease. Interestingly, not all the cells die. Thus, the researchers got into action to set apart and map the individual neurons numbering in thousands from those people who died due to Parkinson or dementia with Lewy bodies. In this process, 22,000 brain cells were studied by Kamath and his team taken from 10 individuals who passed away due to Parkison’s or dementia and eight from persons who had not been affected by any of two diseases.

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