Journal of Rashid Latif Medical College 1 (2014) 01-03 SHID A R LATI F Journal of Rashid Latif Medical College Review j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . j r l m c . o r g Parkinson's Disease Mechanisms and its Treatment Shujah Zeb 1,* , Saba Rehman 1 , Muhammad Saad Khan 1 , Sahar Fazal 1 , Shahid Hussain* 1 1 Department of Bioinformatics, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University Islamabad, Pakistan KEY WORDS: Parkinson's disease, Dopamine, Levodopa, Drugs ABSTRACT Neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson's appears essentially as a sporadic conditions.The second most frequent neurodegenerative disease is Parkinson after Alzheimer's. The death of dopamine-generating cells in the substantia nigra is the main cause of Parkinson's disease but the reason behind the death of cells is still unknown. Most of the work has be done from the last years to understand the Parkinson's disease mechanism on the bases of genetic where multiple gene are associated with this disease. So the multiple pathways have been associated in the pathogenesis of PD like impairment and mitochondrial dysfunction. The primary symptoms of the PD can be cured with modern treatment like the use of Levodopa and Dopamine agonists. At secondary stage these drugs are ineffective for the treatment of PD where dopaminergic neurons continue to be lost. The main symptoms of Parkinson's are slowing of movement, postural instability, tremor at rest and stiffness. The neuropsychiatric disturbances are cause by PD which include disorders of mood, behavior, thought, speech and cognition.Core cure for PD is still unknown but still through the help of medication it can be controlled to improve life of person suffering from it. Introduction The chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disorder is caused by Parkinson's that affects at least 1% of people by the age of 70 (18) . This means that from the time of PD diagnosis individuals with PD can be live for twenty years or more. Currently there is no proper cure for Parkinson's disease and it is itself not incurable (10) . Dopamine are produced by the neurons and substantianigra is the area in brain where these neurons concentrate. The movement of the human body is control by Dopamine which conveys the messages between the substantianigra and other part of the body due to Dopamine chemical nature. Dopamine also helps in the smooth movement of coordinated muscle. Dopamine helps to control the disease at primary stage but when approximately 60 to 80% of the Dopamine producing cell are damage and not able to produce further Dopamine then the secondary stage of the Parkinson's disease will be appeared. This is called neurodegeneration that is the process of brain cells impairment. In 1817 James Parkinson provides the brief description of the disease. In nineteenth century, Charcot identify the clinical features of Parkinson's disease rest tremor, rigidity, balance impairment, and slowness of movement by refining the description of PD that provided by the Charcot. Brissaud (2) indicate the pathology of the disease that damage in the substantianigra (SN) might lead to PD (13) . At later, the pathological marker of the disease like Eosinophilic inclusions (Lewy bodies) were identified in the brain of PD patients along with abnormalities in SN (15-11) . Motor symptoms can be improved by the levodopa therapy during the initial stage of Parkinson's disease. Thecauses of PD are still unknown. There are many medication available for the effective treatment of motor as well as non-motor symptoms. Many environment factor has be involved in PD. In 1968, levodopa has remained the most efficacious treatment of PD but unfortunately the use of levodopa is associated with motor obstaclessuchas wearing off, dyskinesia's, and 'on–off 'phenomenon (22) .The 50% levodopa-treated patients have these obstacles that use the drug for more Corresponding author: shahid.hussain@jinnah.edu.pk JRLMC VOL .3 NO.1 JAN – JUN 2014 49