JPD: the origin of Parkinson's disease: gut or brain?

November 10, 2019 / BIOON / -- recently, in the Journal of Parkinson's In a new paper published in the journal disease, scientists speculate that Parkinson's disease can be divided into two subtypes: the first is the peripheral nervous system (PNS) that originates in the gut and spreads to the brain; the second is the brain or enters the brain through the olfactory system, and then spreads to the brain stem and peripheral nervous system Dr Nathalie van den Berge, from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, thinks that Parkinson's disease may contain two different subtypes: (1) intestinal priority type, whose obvious damage to the peripheral autonomic nervous system is prior to that of the brain; (2) brain priority type, whose obvious damage to the brain is prior to that of the peripheral autonomic nervous system (image source: www Pixabay Com) "evidence from autopsy studies of the brains of PD patients suggests that Parkinson's disease may begin in the peripheral nervous system of the gut and nose The pathology then spreads through the nerves to the brain However, not all autopsy studies agree with this explanation " Dr van den Berge added: "discussions about the origin of Parkinson's disease are usually exclusive, i.e either all Parkinson's cases start in the gut or all cases start in the brain However, a lot of evidence seems to be compatible with these two explanations So we need to consider the possibility that both situations are actually right " This review summarizes existing evidence from human imaging studies and tissue studies from human and animal models Imaging and histological studies are generally compatible with the brain first hypothesis and the body first hypothesis If this hypothesis is correct, it shows that the mechanism of Parkinson's disease is more complicated than originally thought If only part of the patients are in the intestinal tract, the intestinal interventions may only be effective for some patients Dr van den Berge pointed out: "if the hypothesis of brain priority and body priority is correct, we need to strengthen research to understand the risk factors and trigger factors of the two subtypes respectively." Source of information: where does Parkinson's disease start? In the brain or guide? Or both? Original source: per borghammer, Nathalie van den Berge Brain first versus gutfirst Parkinson's disease: a hypothesis Journal of Parkinson's disease, 2019; 9 (S2): S281 doi: 10.3233/jpd-191721