Review

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases Common Cause

Erick G. RodríguezRISE

• Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson’s disease:

The most common progressive neurologic diseases

Irreversible loss of neurons in various areas of the brain

• Caused by the accumulation of proteins

• Incurable

• Protein aggregates accumulate, killing the neurons in the midbrain that release dopamine at synapses in the basal nuclei.

• Lewy bodies and Lewy neurities are made of ubiquitin and α-synuclein.

α-synuclein is found naturally in the brain and has an unknown function

Nussbaum R, Ellis C. 2003. Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. The New England Journal of Medicine 348(14):1356-1364.

• visual system

• auditory system

• eye movement

• body movement

HOPES. 2004. The HOPES Brain Tutorial. Available: http://www.stanford.edu/group/hopes/basics/braintut/ab3.html.

• Many patients have symptoms of both diseases.

• Masliah and coworkers at the University of California, San Diego:

• β-amyloid and α-synuclein are active proteins in both diseases

these two proteins work together to create a hybrid protein

o β-amyloid promote α-synuclein aggregation

Tsigelny I, Crews L, Desplats P, Shaked G, Sharikov Y, Mizuno H, Spencer B Rockenstein E, Trejo M, Platoshyn O, Yuan J, Masliah E. 2008. Mechanisms of Hybrid Oligomer Formation in the Pathogenesis of Combined Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases. PLoS ONE [Internet]; 3(9),

Available from: e3135. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003135

Alzheimer’s Association [Internet]. What is Alzheimer’s? [cited 2009 Sep 26]. Available from: http://www.alzheimersassociation.com/alzheimers_disease_what_is_alzheimers.asp.

Masliah E, Rockenstein E, Veinbergs I, Sagara Y, Mallory M, Hashimoto M, Mucke L. 2001. β-Amyloid peptides enhance α-synuclein accumulation and neuronal deficits in a transgenic mouse model linking Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America 98(21):12245-12250.

Nussbaum R, Ellis C. 2003. Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. The New England Journal of Medicine 348(14):1356-1364.

Parkinson’s Disease Society [Internet]. What is Parkinson’s? [cited 2009 Sep 26]. Available from:http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/about_parkinsons/what_is_parkinsons/what_is_parkinsons.aspx.

Tsigelny I, Crews L, Desplats P, Shaked G, Sharikov Y, Mizuno H, Spencer B Rockenstein E, Trejo M, Platoshyn O, Yuan J, Masliah E. 2008. Mechanisms of Hybrid Oligomer Formation in the Pathogenesis of Combined Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases. PLoS ONE [Internet]. [cited 2009 sept 14]; 3(9), Available from: e3135. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003135

Wasserman S. 2008. Nervous Systems. In: Campbell NA, Reece JB, editors. Biology. San Francisco (CA): Pearson Benjamin Cummings. p. 1082-1083.