Growing up, my grandparents always played an important role in my life, and fortunately, still do. My grandpa was diagnosed with Parkinson’s when I had just started high school. Visiting, I noticed tremors I have never seen in a person before. It wasn’t terribly onset at the time, and still is quite manageable for him, and my grandma. At the time I had no idea what Parkinson’s actually was, whether this ‘thing’ was going to threaten his life, or how much longer I actually had with him. Now, I am a little more informed of what is going on in his body, and am thankful for what this class has taught me. Here is why:
Although Parkinson disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting both motor and nonmotor functioning, I most likely will not lose him to the disorder. I am very fortunate, because I know others may not be so lucky… I’m thankful his PD is not as debilitating as others may experience.
The onset of PD increases with risk factors such as aging, bad genes, and some environmental factors. The unfortunate reality we face with PD is that we do not know much about it or how these risk factors interlink to play a role in the pathogenic process. What I looked extensively into for my neurochemistry class was the way PD can spread throughout the body. I don’t get to see my grandpa often, but when I do it seems as if his tremors have conquered another unfortunate moiety of his body. Because of this, I wanted to look into how it was ‘spreading’.
For background knowledge, PD is characterized by the presence of Lewy bodies, the pathogenesis of which remains unknown. There has, however, been the discovery of misfolded alpha-synuclein (asyn) being a major component of radiating filaments and Lewy neurites. This has initiated the investigation of whether or not PD should be characterized as a synucleinopathy.
As of now, researchers have looked at what is called the “seeding mechanism”. What is meant by that? Well it’s very recent research, but what they are seeing is that this misfolded asyn is somehow being transferred from cell-to-cell and poses as a “seed” for more of these asyn’s to accumulate to form Lewy bodies. These asyn particles can then propagate continuous cycles of aggregation in recipient cells.
Although not much is known about the nature of Parkinson’s, it remains to affect many, increasing in rate with age. Although my grandpa may not be entirely disabled from this disease, there are others who are. For their sake and for our own futures, we should seek to increase our knowledge of PD as we seek to increase our life-expectancy.
The Parkinson's Journey
