Abstract:Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common degenerative disease in the central nervous system, with movement disorder as the main clinical feature and chronic loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra as the main pathological feature. The pathogenesis of PD has not been fully clarified so far. In recent years, important achievements have been made in the basic research on PD in China and foreign countries. This article briefly reviews these research advances from the following five aspects: abnormal aggregation of α-synuclein in the brain, association between gut-brain axis and PD, molecular mechanism for the death of dopaminergic neurons, mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress, and the role of glial cells and peripheral immune cells in the pathogenesis of PD. These advances show that PD is a systemic disease involving not only dopaminergic neurons and glial cells in the brain, but also peripheral immune cells and other tissue and organs. Such new understanding will help to promote the future development of accurate diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.
