MDS 2025 | Basic science of movement disorders: recent updates in the field
Tiago Outeiro, PhD, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany, discusses updates in the understanding of the basic science of movement disorders. He highlights advances in the understanding of connectomics, Huntington’s disease, different species of alpha-synuclein, and more. This interview took place at the International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders (MDS) in Honolulu, HI.
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Transcript
So, at the MDS Congress, I gave a presentation on this topic, on highlights of basic science in the field of movement disorders. And one thing I would highlight is our advance in understanding of how neurons are connected in the brain, an area that is called connectomics. So I talked about some new technologies that enable advances in this field. And this is important because by understanding how neurons are connected, we’ll be able to understand how the brain functions...
So, at the MDS Congress, I gave a presentation on this topic, on highlights of basic science in the field of movement disorders. And one thing I would highlight is our advance in understanding of how neurons are connected in the brain, an area that is called connectomics. So I talked about some new technologies that enable advances in this field. And this is important because by understanding how neurons are connected, we’ll be able to understand how the brain functions. And this is very relevant for disease, for understanding what happens when the brain is not functioning properly, and how different regions may become disconnected. Another highlight I gave was on some new development in the field of Huntington’s disease, where it was described in the past few months that there are somatic expansions of the CAG repeat in the brain. So it’s not just what we are born with genetically, but if there is an expansion already that is inherited, then the neurons in the brain, as we age, they will be more likely to expand those repeats even further. And this can lead to very detrimental consequences in local areas in the brain where the somatic expansions take place. Then I mentioned also some advances in our understanding of the different species of alpha-synuclein that accumulate in the brain. There were two recent studies that showed that in genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease associated with LARK2 mutations, we don’t necessarily find the typical Lewy body and Lewy neurite pathology, but we can find smaller inclusions that are detected by other techniques. And this tells us that Lewy pathology is not necessary for disease and that there may be other species that are equally relevant and that we need to investigate further to understand the mechanisms of disease. And finally, I could highlight some studies I mentioned on new ideas related to the spreading of pathology, not only from the gut to the brain, but more generally from the periphery to the brain and possibly from the kidney to the brain. There was a study showing that the kidney can clear alpha-synuclein from the blood. And if this doesn’t work properly, then maybe there’s more alpha-synuclein circulating that can reach the brain and spread pathology.
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