Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 May;127(5):785-791.
doi: 10.1007/s00702-020-02167-1. Epub 2020 Mar 14.

Parkinson's disease treatment: past, present, and future

John D Elsworth  1
Affiliations
Review

Parkinson's disease treatment: past, present, and future

John D Elsworth. J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2020 May.

Abstract

The substantial contributions of Dr. Gerald Stern to past and current treatments for Parkinson's disease patients are reviewed, which form the foundation for an evaluation of future options to control symptoms and halt progression of the disease. These opportunities will depend on a greater understanding of the relative contributions of the environment, genetic and epigenetic influences to disease onset, and promise to emerge as strategies for improving mitochondrial function, halting accumulation of synuclein and neuromelanin, in addition to refinement of stem cell and gene therapies. Such advances will be achieved through deployment of improved models for the disease.

Keywords: Gene therapy; Parkinson’s disease; Pathology; Pharmacology; Review; Stem cells.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: The author has no financial disclosure to make or have any conflict of interest.

References

    1. Abbott A (2014) Fetal-cell revival for Parkinson’s Nature 510:195–196 doi:10.1038/510195a - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aly AE, Waszczak BL (2015) Intranasal gene delivery for treating Parkinson’s disease: overcoming the blood-brain barrier Expert Opin Drug Deliv 12:1923–1941 doi:10.1517/17425247.2015.1069815 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Barinapa M (1995) Researchers broaden the attack on Parkinson’s disease Science 267:455–456 doi:10.1126/science.7824944 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bjugstad KB, Teng YD, Redmond DE Jr., Elsworth JD, Roth RH, Cornelius SK, Snyder EY, Sladek JR Jr. (2008) Human neural stem cells migrate along the nigrostriatal pathway in a primate model of Parkinson’s disease Exp Neurol 211:362–369 doi:10.1016/j.expneurol.2008.01.025 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Blackburn J, Curry D, Thomsen A, Roth R, Elsworth J (2020) Pioglitazone activates paraoxonase-2 in the brain: a novel neuroprotective mechanism Exp Neurol in press - PMC - PubMed