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Review
. 1999 Jan 30;318(7179):311-4.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.318.7179.311.

Science, medicine, and the future: Parkinson's disease

Affiliations
Review

Science, medicine, and the future: Parkinson's disease

A H Schapira. BMJ. .
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Putative time courses for loss of dopaminergic neurones from substantia nigra relative to different aetiologies of Parkinson’s disease. (a) Environmental cause of disease: the environmental insult (arrows) can occur at any time and results in rapid loss of neurones superimposed on age related loss (black line). (b) Genetic cause of disease: the rate of cell death is not known, although patients tend to present at younger age than usual, and rate may vary according to gene defect and patient’s genetic background (red, green, and blue lines). (c) Interaction of environmental and genetic causes: genetically induced high rate of cell death (red line) couple with severe point exposure to environmental factor (arrow) results in early presentation; less severe genetic and environmental effects (green line) result in more gradual cell death; and genetic susceptibility superimposed on lifetime exposure to common toxin (blue line) may cause slow cell loss with later presentation of disease
Figure 2
Figure 2
Neurorescue and neuroprotection in Parkinson’s disease. Effective neurorescue at diagnosis (red line) will restore damaged neurones that are at risk of death (shaded area between curves) to normal function, and age related loss will probably be attenuated with continuing treatment. Neuroprotection (green line) will prevent further neuronal loss other than by attenuated age related loss

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