The National Institute on Aging considers Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a brain disorder. Other descriptions characterize it as a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder. Scientists know there is a loss of brain cells that produce dopamine, which regulate one’s voluntary movements.
But there’s a disturbing limit to what we truly understand about this disorder. According to the NIA, “scientists still do not know what causes cells that produce dopamine to die.” One investigator with a research laboratory in the Van Andel Institute’s Department of Neurodegenerative Science wants to figure that out.
Image credits: Josh Riemer.
The lab, with its focus on PD, wants to know more about how cells and cell-to-cell communication in the brain are affected by Parkinson’s. The Chu Lab is on a mission to “identify mechanisms that contribute to progressive degeneration of midbrain dopaminergic neurons, and abnormal circuit activity that underlies the devastating motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.”