University of Oslo : Why do ageing neurons die? Unfinished DNA repair contributes to the damage and age-related loss of neurons. However, it might be possible to protect the nerve cells, which may have implications for the prevention of Parkinson's ...
ENPNewswire-November 1, 2021--University of Oslo : Why do ageing neurons die? Unfinished DNA repair contributes to the damage and age-related loss of neurons. However, it might be possible to protect the nerve cells, which may have implications for the prevention of Parkinson's disease
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Release date- 29102021 - Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurological disorder that affects the body's ability to move. The most common symptoms of Parkinson's disease are muscle rigidity, tremor, slowness of movement and poor balance. More than 10 million people are living with the condition worldwide.
The disease is caused by a gradual loss of neurons that produce dopamine in the brain. Neurons are a type of nerve cells that transmit information between different areas of the brain, and between the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Neurons are therefore crucial for everything we do, from thinking to talking, feeling and moving our bodies. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter helping the neurons to send the messages.
When symptoms of Parkinson's disease arrive, most of the dopamine-producing neurons have already died. However, until today, scientists did not know why these neurons are lost. Researcher Tanima Sengupta and her colleagues have recently made a discovery that may explain why these neurons degenerate and die when we get older.
Our study is important because it shows that age-related loss of these neurons is not something that we have to accept as an inevitable side effect of ageing. We can start to think about ways to prevent this from happening in the first place, Sengupta states.
The ability to repair DNA damage in the neurons diminishes with age
Like nearly all cells in our body, the neurons contain DNA, which is the genetic information that we inherit from our parents. However, harmful substances continuously attack the DNA in the neurons and damage them. When this happens, our body tries to repair the DNA through a process called DNA repair.
The DNA repair mechanism seems to play a central role in the way that our neurons are damaged when we get older. The researchers namely found that the body's ability to repair the DNA in the neurons diminishes with ageing.
We have demonstrated that ageing leads to a loss of coordination within a pathway that is central to DNA repair in neurons, Sengupta says.
You could compare the loss of coordination in this pathway with a building site, where...
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