Cork NeuroScience Group University College Cork Friday April 26th 2013 in associaon with Neuroscience Ireland, present, to mark the European Month of the Brain: Parkinson’s disease: from molecules to movement Welcome Message We would like to welcome you to University College Cork for our conference, “Parkinson’s disease: from molecules to movement”. This meeng is hosted by the Cork NeuroScience Group, in celebraon of European Month of the Brain. We are deeply grateful for financial support from Lundbeck, AbbVie, Neuroscience Ireland, The Ana- tomical Society and the College of Medicine & Health, UCC. It is a great honour for our Parkinson’s Dis- ease Research Cluster in UCC to welcome such a presgious line-up of speakers at this inaugural annual conference. We are confident that today’s meeng will help to foster exisng collaboraons between our group in UCC and those of the vising speakers, as well as to develop new collaboraons. The month of April has been designated as Parkinson’s Awareness month and is marked worldwide. We are very opmisc that our ongoing work in Parkinson’s disease will advance our knowledge of this condion and its treatment, and improve outcomes for paents and their carers. Dr. Aideen Sullivan, Dr. Sean O’Sullivan, Ms. Lucy Collins and Dr. Gerard O’Keeffe. (Organising Commiee) Parkinson’s disease: Can we move in the right direction? Shane Hegarty, PhD student , Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience, UCC. ‘Imagine losing the control of your own movements’ In Parkinson’s disease an important populaon of brain cells, known as dopaminergic neurons, die. Let’s imagine these dopaminergic neurons as a tree, with the tree’s roots in the midbrain and its branches in the forebrain. These branches produce dopa- mine which allows us to voluntarily control our movements. However, they are killed in Parkinson’s disease. The resulng loss of dopamine means that Parkinson’s disease sufferers can decide on what movements they want to carry out, but they then cannot control how this movement occurs, or even if it occurs at all! Current Parkinson’s disease treatment involves dopamine replacement, that is, giving drugs that become or act like dopamine, which provide symptomac relief. However they do not stop, slow or cure the disease. Can we move towards a Parkinson’s disease cure? The fact that the loss of just a single populaon of cells in the brain has such enormous consequences for the sufferer is scary. However, it provides the promising possibility that a cure for this disease may reside in replacement of these specific cells. In order to produce these dopaminergic neurons, we first need to understand how they develop. Brain stem cells: can a cure stem from them? Brain stem cells can develop into any brain cell type, given the right signals. Furthermore, they can potenally generate an unlimited number of brain cells. We can add various signals to brain stem cells to try and turn them into dopaminergic neurons. The big world of signals. These signals are present in the nervous system as it develops, and each region of the nervous system has a different combinaon of signals, telling brain stem cells what to become. We are interested in which combinaons of specific signals can turn brain stem cells into dopaminergic neurons. Where do we move next? We need to take these dopaminergic neurons that are produced in the laboratory, and transplant them into the brain of Parkinson’s disease paents. Hopefully the ‘branches’ of these transplanted dopaminergic neurons will grow into the brain, take the place of the old, dead branches, and produce dopamine. The transplantaon of dopamin- ergic neurons could help Parkinson’s paents all over the globe to once again control their movements. Condensed from arcle published in ‘The Boolean: Snapshots of doctoral research’ UCC 2012. Full arcle hp://publish.ucc.ie/boolean2012/00/Hegarty/08/en College of Medicine and Health