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The goal of the UCLA Udall Center is to elucidate, in genetic models of PD and in patients, mechanisms of that could be used for therapeutic intervention at early stages of PD. Accordingly, our main focus is on neuronal dysfunction preceding dopaminergic cell death, with an emphasis on extra-nigral pathology both in brain and in peripheral organs.

A main strategy in the Center is to identify, in animal and cellular models, early pathological effects of a variety of mutations known to cause PD in order to identify points of convergence that may have therapeutic implications for all forms of the disease, whatever their original cause. In parallel, we will provide much needed data on disease progression and phenotype of patients with PD.

Project 1 (Marie-Francoise Chesselet and William Yang) is establishing the time course of both motor and non-motor behavioral deficits in established and novel genetic mouse models of PD in correlation with the progression of neuropathological anomalies in multiple brain regions and alterations in aminergic neurons examined with molecular tools in axon terminals and cell bodies.

Project 2 (Nigel Maidment and Felix Schweizer) focuses on dysregulation of neurotransmitter release from both nigrostriatal dopaminergic and other neuronal systems by measuring neurotransmitter release in vivo in mice, and examining vesicular recycling in cultured cells.

Project 3 (Michael Levine) determines the effects of PD mutations on electrophysiological alterations in the striatum, cortex and substantia nigra pars compacta dopamine neurons in the same genetic mouse models of PD used in projects 1 and 2.

Project 4 (Stefan Pulst and Felix Schweizer) examines the pathogenic roles of parkin interaction with key synaptic proteins in cellular models of PD in order to provide a mechanistic underpinning for synaptic dysfunction in PD.

Project 5 (Barbara Vickrey and Beate Ritz) determines the course and the environmental, behavioral, social, and genetic determinants of progression of motor and non-motor manifestations of PD, and subsequent impacts on health-related quality of life (HRQOL). The study is conducted in a uniquely well-characterized cohort of subjects from an ongoing NIEHS-funded study of risk factors for incidence of PD. In addition, state-of-the-science approaches are employed to developing an HRQOL item bank for PD that will be made publicly available, will enable efficient and precise measurement of HRQOL in PD, will be applicable to multiple cultural groups in the US, including Spanish-speaking PD patients, and will be essential for the translation of basic research findings into future clinical trials.

Last updated August 13, 2007