Prof Kalyan Chakrabarti co-authors paper on “The happiness hormone and Parkinson’s disease”

Prof Kalyan

Prof Kalyan Chakrabarti published a paper on Parkinson’s disease with collaborators from University of Medicine and Max Planck Institute, Göttingen, Germany in the Journal of Neurochemistry.

About the Paper:

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an incurable brain disorder that causes uncontrollable shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with walking, balance and coordination, along with psychological complications of dementia, depression and anxiety. In 2015, PD affected 6.2 millions people (more than 1 million cases in India) and caused about 1.2 L deaths globally. The symptomatic loss of motor function is due to the damage in the portion of midbrain that releases dopamine, commonly known as the “happiness hormone”. As a result, the standard treatment to control the symptoms of PD are related to dopamine like molecules. The cause of PD is unknown and the biological mechanism of PD is an active area of research. In the biomedical literature the role played by the protein alpha synuclein is well established. The related protein beta synuclein is reported to play a beneficial role in patients suffering from PD. In this paper the researchers have described their recent results that show that the interaction of dopamine with beta synuclein may act as a culprit in Parkinson’s disease. 

Reference: Raina A, Leite K, Guerin S, Mahajani SU, Chakrabarti KS, Voll D, Becker S, Griesinger C, Bähr M & Kügler S “Dopamine promotes the neurodegenerative potential of beta-synuclein”, Journal of Neurochemistry, DOI: 10.1111/jnc.15134

Read the complete paper, here.