Movement disorder: disorder of immune system in Parkinson's disease

October 6, 2019 / Biovalley BIOON / -- a new study shows that the behavior of immune cells in Parkinson's disease patients' blood is significantly different from that in normal patients In addition, the author suggests that drugs can regulate the immune system, so as to achieve the purpose of inhibiting brain degeneration The research was conducted by researchers from the Department of biomedicine, Aarhus University, Denmark, and was published in the recent journal of movement disorders "The research project confirms a growing theory that Parkinson's disease is not only a brain disease, but also related to the immune system Whether it's in the brain or the rest of the body, "said Marina Romero Ramos, the author and associate professor of neuroscience (image source: www Pixabay Com) Dr Sara Konstantin Nissen, the lead author of the study, added: "in the long run, this finding suggests that immunomodulatory therapy, combined with the current use of levodopa drugs, may help to slow the progression of the disease." Parkinson's disease is characterized by the abnormal accumulation of proteins called "α - synuclein", which leads to the slow degeneration of brain neurons This causes the patient to develop symptoms of dyskinesia In this new study, the researchers tested the blood samples of 29 patients with Parkinson's disease and 20 control subjects for protein α - synuclein, and determined that the immune cells in the blood of patients with Parkinson's disease had poor ability in regulating cell surface immune markers, and their efficiency in secreting anti-inflammatory molecules was lower than that of the control group "The immune system works in a delicate balance On the one hand, it eliminates the accumulation of invading microorganisms and superfluous proteins (such as α - synuclein) But on the other hand, the immune system must also avoid excessive exuberance, otherwise the body's own cells will be damaged due to excessive inflammation "In academia, she added, it is believed that immune cells in the blood contain (or express) a receptor called CD163 on their surface and migrate to the brains of Parkinson's patients It was once thought that these cells could help clear away the accumulation of α - synuclein, which damages the brain, but the current research shows that these cells have been wrongly regulated in the blood before entering the bloodstream Sara Konstantin NISSE said: "this leads us to believe that drug regulation of the immune system may at least slow down the degeneration of neurons in the brain of Parkinson's patients." Information source: Parkinson's release is also present in the blood original source: Sara Konstantin Nissen, Kalpana shrivastava, Claudia Schulte, Daniel Erik Otzen, David Goldeck, Daniela Berg, Holger Jon m ø ller, Walter maetzler, Marina Romero Ramos Alternations in blood monocyte functions in Parkinson's release Movement disorders, 2019; DOI: 10.1002/mds.27815