AsianScientist (Aug. 27, 2018) – Researchers in Japan and Canada have identified a genetic defect and a biological pathway that may contribute to both schizophrenia and early-onset Parkinson’s disease. They published their findings in Science Advances. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is caused by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain, resulting in motor and cognitive decline. It has been estimated that PD affects one percent of all individuals above sixty years of age. Early onset of PD, which occurs when a person is less than fifty years old, is less common, albeit just as debilitating. In this study, researchers led by Professor Toshifumi Tomoda at the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, with collaborators at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada, sought out the molecular basis of PD. They began by studying chromosome 22q11.2 deletions, which are known to be associated with schizophrenia (SZ). Read more from Asian Scientist Magazine at: https://www.asianscientist.com/2018/08/in-the-lab/schizophrenia-parkinsons-disease-share-common-mechanism/
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That’s superinteresting. I have wondered about that and asked my psychiatrist about it (he dismissed it). There is severe parkinson in my family, and I have an uncle with psychoses, and many people in my family are a bit vulnerable in general, mentally and socially, without really having enough symptoms of anything to get a diagnosis.