Reply To: Zhittya Genesis is Therapeutic Angiogenesis a treatment for Parkinson’s?

[Dr. Jack Jacobs]

<p style=”text-align: center;”>Vascular Dysfunction in the Brain as an Initiating Event in Parkinson’s Disease</p>
The concept that Parkinson’s disease is essentially a vascular dysfunction disorder comes from the pioneering work of Dr. Berislav Zlokovic and his research team at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. These USC researchers believe that a substantial proportion of neurogenerative diseases are wholly or partly due to age-related small vessel disease of the brain.

Here is a quote from one of Dr. Zlokovic’s papers published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal, Cell: “aberrant angiogenesis, vessel regression, brain hypo-perfusion, and inflammatory responses, may initiate and/or contribute to a ‘vicious circle’ of the disease process, resulting in progressive synaptic and neuronal dysfunction and loss in disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, and others.”  (Cell, vol 163, pp 1064-1078, November 19, 2015).

It is known that the brain is critically dependent on healthy blood vessels to support the nourishment of its neurons, as well as to remove toxic waste products from the organ. When blood vessels start to work improperly due to age, disease or other factors, the brain’s function can be compromised. If vascular dysfunction occurs in the substantia nigra region of the brain that houses the dopamine-secreting neurons, it is our belief that this is the initiating event in Parkinson’s disease. In my next post, I will review the evidence for reduced blood flow and hypo-perfusion in the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease.