Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the second most common, progressive, adult onset, neurodegenerative disease in Europe and is characterized by the loss of midbrain dopaminergic neurons and the formation of Lewy bodies in the remaining dopaminergic neurons, causing motor impairment such as bradykinesia, rigidity and slow movement. Dopamine (DA) via L-Dopa therapy ameliorates many but not all symptoms and induces uncontrollable L-Dopa induced dyskinesia (LID), a complicated and debilitating side effect that affects almost all patients following 5-10 years of chronic treatment. L-Dopa induced dyskinesia (LID) affects up to 90% of patients treated with L-DOPA and currently no treatment to ameliorate symptoms exist. There is an urgent need to better understand the pathophysiology underlying this important treatment side effect and to develop drugs to reduce symptoms.
It is known that the neurotransmitters systems of Dopamine and Serotonin interact with each other and it is known that neurons producing serotonin can also metabolize and release L-DOPA which Is thought to contribute to the L-DOPA induced dyskinesia.
We study specific serotonin receptors to better understand this functional interaction and to identify targets for pharmacotherapy aiming to alleviate the dyskinesia. We want to determine the expression pattern of serotonin receptors on a cellular level, determine how modulation thereof alters responses to the drug L-DOPA and to LID in a mouse model of Parkinson.