Parkinson's Disease, Lights and Melanocytes: Looking Beyond the Retina

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Abstract

Critical analysis of recent research suggesting that light pollution causes Parkinson's disease (PD) reveals that such a hypothesis is unsustainable in the context of therapeutic use of light in treating various neuropsychiatric conditions. Reinterpretation of their findings suggests that retinal damage caused by prolonged light exposure may have contributed to the observed enhancement of experimental PD. To test this hypothesis further, forty-two Sprague Dawley rats received microinjections of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), 1-methyl-4-phenyl-2, 4, 6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP), paraquat or rotenone into the vitreal mass in doses so minute that the effects could not be attributed to diffusion into brain. Significant changes in five motor parameters consistent with symptoms of experimental PD were observed. These findings support the interpretation that the retina is involved in the control of motor function and in the aetiology of PD.

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Noninvasive, infrared monitoring of cerebral and myocardial oxygen sufficiency and circulatory parameters.

Frans Jöbsis (1977)

The relatively good transparency of biological materials in the near infrared region of the spectrum permits sufficient photon transmission through organs in situ for the monitoring of cellular events. Observations by infrared transillumination in the exposed heart and in the brain in cephalo without surgical intervention show that oxygen sufficiency for cytochrome a,a3, function, changes in tissue blood volume, and the average hemoglobin-oxyhemoglobin equilibrium can be recorded effectively and in continuous fashion for research and clinical purposes. The copper atom associated with heme a3 did not respond to anoxia and may be reduced under normoxic conditions, whereas the heme-a copper was at least partially reducible.

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Environmental risk factors and Parkinson's disease: selective degeneration of nigral dopaminergic neurons caused by the herbicide paraquat.

Antonella Di Sarno, Amy B Manning-Boğ, L McCormack … (2002)

Environmental toxicants and, in particular, pesticides have been implicated as risk factors in Parkinson's disease (PD). The purpose of this study was to determine if selective nigrostriatal degeneration could be reproduced by systemic exposure of mice to the widely used herbicide paraquat. Repeated intraperitoneal paraquat injections killed dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) pars compacta, as assessed by stereological counting of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-immunoreactive and Nissl-stained neurons. This cell loss was dose- and age-dependent. Several lines of evidence indicated selective vulnerability of dopaminergic neurons to paraquat. The number of GABAergic cells was not decreased in the SN pars reticulata, and counting of Nissl-stained neurons in the hippocampus did not reveal any change in paraquat-treated mice. Degenerating cell bodies were observed by silver staining, but only in the SN pars compacta, and glial response was present in the ventral mesencephalon but not in the frontal cortex and cerebellum. No significant depletion of striatal dopamine followed paraquat administration. On the other hand, enhanced dopamine synthesis was suggested by an increase in TH activity. These findings unequivocally show that selective dopaminergic degeneration, one of the pathological hallmarks of PD, is also a characteristic of paraquat neurotoxicity. The apparent discrepancy between pathological (i.e., neurodegeneration) and neurochemical (i.e., lack of significant dopamine loss) effects represents another important feature of this paraquat model and is probably a reflection of compensatory mechanisms by which neurons that survive damage are capable of restoring neurotransmitter tissue levels.

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The retina in Parkinson's disease.

K Archibald, D Burn, U. Mosimann … (2009)

As a more complete picture of the clinical phenotype of Parkinson's disease emerges, non-motor symptoms have become increasingly studied. Prominent among these non-motor phenomena are mood disturbance, cognitive decline and dementia, sleep disorders, hyposmia and autonomic failure. In addition, visual symptoms are common, ranging from complaints of dry eyes and reading difficulties, through to perceptual disturbances (feelings of presence and passage) and complex visual hallucinations. Such visual symptoms are a considerable cause of morbidity in Parkinson's disease and, with respect to visual hallucinations, are an important predictor of cognitive decline as well as institutional care and mortality. Evidence exists of visual dysfunction at several levels of the visual pathway in Parkinson's disease. This includes psychophysical, electrophysiological and morphological evidence of disruption of retinal structure and function, in addition to disorders of 'higher' (cortical) visual processing. In this review, we will draw together work from animal and human studies in an attempt to provide an insight into how Parkinson's disease affects the retina and how these changes might contribute to the visual symptoms experienced by patients.

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Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Rep

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Rep

Title: Scientific Reports

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

ISSN (Electronic): 2045-2322

Publication date (Electronic): 29 January 2014

Publication date Collection: 2014

Volume: 4

Electronic Location Identifier: 3921

Affiliations

[1 ]Neurosciences Section, The Bronowski Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, Coliban Medical Centre, 19 Jennings Street, Kyneton , Victoria 3444, Australia

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[a ] director@ 123456bronowski.org

Article

Publisher Item ID: srep03921

DOI: 10.1038/srep03921

PMC ID: 5379242

PubMed ID: 24473093

SO-VID: d5640005-0843-42db-93db-b48e55954c01

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Parkinson's Disease, Lights and Melanocytes: Looking Beyond the Retina

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Alternative approaches to Alzheimer's Disease

Most cited references 103

Noninvasive, infrared monitoring of cerebral and myocardial oxygen sufficiency and circulatory parameters.

Environmental risk factors and Parkinson's disease: selective degeneration of nigral dopaminergic neurons caused by the herbicide paraquat.

The retina in Parkinson's disease.

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