Researchers identify path to treat Parkinson's disease at its inception
Monday, January 16, 2012 - 17:00
in Health & Medicine
(Medical Xpress) -- Imagine if doctors could spot Parkinsons disease at its inception and treat the protein that triggers it before the disease can sicken the patient. A team of researchers led by Basir Ahmad, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University, has demonstrated that slow-wriggling alpha-synuclein proteins are the cause of aggregation, or clumping together, which is the first step of Parkinsons. The results are published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.