Many researchers believe that the neurodegenerative disorder gets started in the gut. Research now suggests that an autoimmune reaction may be driving those early events.
Ask any neurologist: Parkinson's disease is a brain disorder. The conspicuous symptoms of Parkinson's disease -- uncontrollable tremors, slowed down motions, and the feeling that one's feet are stuck to the ground -- all stem from the loss of neurons in a region of the brain that helps control movement.
New findings by Columbia researchers David Sulzer, PhD, and Dritan Agalliu, PhD, and two of their graduate students are adding to evidence backing this hypothesis -- and showing that what triggers initial gastrointestinal changes in Parkinson's could be a misdirected immune attack. In Parkinson's, a protein called alpha-synuclein becomes misfolded, accumulates inside neurons, and slowly poisons the cells. Sulzer's lab in collaboration with immunologists at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology has shown that small portions of the misfolded alpha-synuclein also can appear on the outside of neurons, which makes the neurons vulnerable to attack from the immune system.
The researchers did not see any signs resembling Parkinson's disease in the brain, but they did see that an immune attack on neurons in the gut produced constipation and other gastrointestinal effects resembling those seen in most Parkinson's patients years before they are diagnosed with the disease.
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