Parkinson’s is a disease of many dimensions. On the shelves of any bookstore or library you’ll find at least a handful of titles exploring the topic from a myriad of perspectives, and extending that search to the internet will turn up dozens upon dozens more options: how-to guides for the recently diagnosed, in-depth textbooks exploring the neurophysiology of disease development, memoirs about caregiving for people with Parkinson’s, books offering a tour through the history of research advancements. The choices seem limitless and maybe a tad overwhelming. But that’s where we come in. In this episode, we take you through many of the dimensions of Parkinson’s disease, from its complicated biology, still shrouded in mystery, to its history, peppered with transformative moments like the introduction of dopamine. We round out the episode by exploring the tremendous amount of promising research on the horizon, leaving us feeling like we’re *this* close to yet another revolution in Parkinson’s disease treatment. If you’ve ever wondered what dopamine does, who Parkinson was, and what might be next for this disease, this episode is for you.
| History | Biology |
| Palfreman, Jon. Brain Storms: The Race to Unlock the Mysteries of Parkinson’s Disease. Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. | Bloem, B.R., Okun, M.S. and Klein, C., 2021. Parkinson’s disease. The Lancet, 397(10291), pp.2284-2303. |
| Abbott, Alison. “Levodopa: the story so far.” Nature 466.7310 (2010): S6-S7. | Kalia, L.V. and Lang, A.E., 2015. Parkinson’s disease. The Lancet, 386(9996), pp.896-912. |
| Banerjee, Rajashree, et al. “Animal models in the study of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease: A historical perspective.” Animal Models and Experimental Medicine 5.1 (2022): 27-37. | Weintraub, D., Aarsland, D., Chaudhuri, K.R., Dobkin, R.D., Leentjens, A.F., Rodriguez-Violante, M. and Schrag, A., 2022. The neuropsychiatry of Parkinson’s disease: advances and challenges. The Lancet Neurology, 21(1), pp.89-102. |
| Barger, George, and Henry Hallett Dale. “Chemical structure and sympathomimetic action of amines.” The Journal of physiology 41.1-2 (1910): 19. | Armstrong, M.J. and Okun, M.S., 2020. Diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson disease: a review. Jama, 323(6), pp.548-560. |
| Diederich, Nico J., et al. “Parkinson’s disease: Is it a consequence of human brain evolution?.” Movement Disorders 34.4 (2019): 453. | Jankovic, J. and Tan, E.K., 2020. Parkinson’s disease: Etiopathogenesis and treatment. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 91(8), pp.795-808. |
| Fahn, Stanley. “The history of dopamine and levodopa in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.” Movement disorders: official journal of the Movement Disorder Society 23.S3 (2008): S497-S508. | Fanning, S., Selkoe, D. and Dettmer, U., 2020. Parkinson’s disease: proteinopathy or lipidopathy?. NPJ Parkinson’s disease, 6(1), p.3. |
| Goetz, Christopher G. “The history of Parkinson’s disease: early clinical descriptions and neurological therapies.” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine: 1.1 (2011). | Channer, B., Matt, S.M., Nickoloff-Bybel, E.A., Pappa, V., Agarwal, Y., Wickman, J. and Gaskill, P.J., 2023. Dopamine, immunity, and disease. Pharmacological Reviews, 75(1), pp.62-158. |
| Goldman, Jennifer G., and Christopher G. Goetz. “History of Parkinson’s disease.” Handbook of clinical neurology 83 (2007): 107-128. | Dauer, W. and Przedborski, S., 2003. Parkinson’s disease: mechanisms and models. Neuron, 39(6), pp.889-909. |
| Hornykiewicz, O. “L-DOPA: From a biologically inactive amino acid to a successful therapeutic agent: Historical review article.” Amino acids 23 (2002): 65-70. | Spillantini, M.G., Schmidt, M.L., Lee, V.M.Y., Trojanowski, J.Q., Jakes, R. and Goedert, M., 1997. α-Synuclein in Lewy bodies. Nature, 388(6645), pp.839-840. |
| Hornykiewicz, Oleh. “A brief history of levodopa.” Journal of neurology 257.Suppl 2 (2010): 249-252. | Siderowf, A., Concha-Marambio, L., Lafontant, D.E., Farris, C.M., Ma, Y., Urenia, P.A., Nguyen, H., Alcalay, R.N., Chahine, L.M., Foroud, T. and Galasko, D., 2023. Assessment of heterogeneity among participants in the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative cohort using α-synuclein seed amplification: a cross-sectional study. The Lancet Neurology, 22(5), pp.407-417. |
| McDonald, Claire, et al. “200 Years of Parkinson’s disease: what have we learnt from James Parkinson?.” Age and ageing 47.2 (2018): 209-214. | Sotirakis, C., Su, Z., Brzezicki, M.A., Conway, N., Tarassenko, L., FitzGerald, J.J. and Antoniades, C.A., 2023. Identification of motor progression in Parkinson’s disease using wearable sensors and machine learning. npj Parkinson’s Disease, 9(1), p.142. |
| Parkinson, James. “An essay on the shaking palsy.” The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences 14.2 (2002): 223-236. | Sastre, D., Zafar, F., Torres, C.A.M., Piper, D., Kirik, D., Sanders, L.H., Qi, S. and Schüle, B., 2023. Nuclease-dead S. aureus Cas9 downregulates alpha-synuclein and reduces mtDNA damage and oxidative stress levels in patient-derived stem cell model of Parkinson’s disease. bioRxiv, pp.2023-01. |
| Pearce, John M. “Aspects of the history of Parkinson’s disease.” Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry 52.Suppl (1989): 6. | https://clinicaltrials.gov/search?cond=parkinson%27s |
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