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    Home > Active Ingredient News > Study of Nervous System > Nature: Zhong Haining's team discovered the brain's "brake" mechanism for motor control, opening up a new avenue for Parkinson's disease treatment

    Nature: Zhong Haining's team discovered the brain's "brake" mechanism for motor control, opening up a new avenue for Parkinson's disease treatment

    • Last Update: 2023-01-06
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Behind every seemingly simple action in our lives, we rely on the precise regulation
    of the central nervous system motor system.
    In humans and other mammals, the striatum in the brain
    is a key part
    of controlling movement.
    For a long time, it has been believed that motor control and other functions of the striatum rely on the real-time regulation
    of neural circuits in the striatum by dopamine and other neuromodulatory transmitters.
    In Parkinson's disease, striatal dysfunction due to the loss of dopamine-producing cells is a recognized major cause
    .


    Current classical theory holds that the main nerve cell types of the striatum are spiny projection neurons divided into two types
    .
    One is a "direct pathway" to neurons that promote movement
    .
    The other is "indirect pathway" neurons that inhibit movement
    .
    During exercise, dopamine exerts opposite functional modulations
    on these two neurons through different dopamine receptors specifically expressed on these two neurons.
    Specifically, dopamine upregulates intracellular protein
    kinase A (protein kinase A; PKA), thereby enhancing the signaling propagation function of such neurons and further promoting movement
    .
    At the same time, dopamine downregulates the activity of protein kinase A on the "indirect pathway" neurons that inhibit movement, thereby reducing the function of such neurons and reducing their inhibition of movement, achieving the effect
    of "negative negative to positive".


    So the role of dopamine in both types of neurons is to promote movement, like the throttle
    of a car.
    This is also why dopamine neurons are damaged in Parkinson's disease, and a decrease in dopamine release can cause significant movement disorders
    .


    If there is a throttle, there should be a brake
    .
    However, the vast majority of research has focused on the role
    of dopamine in promoting exercise.
    Little is known about whether there is a "brake" mechanism to fight dopamine in the striatum
    .


    On November 10, 2022, the team of Zhong Haining of the Vollum Institute of Oregon Health and Science University published a report in Nature entitled Locomotion activates PKA through dopamine and adenosine in striatal neurons Research papers
    .


    The study reveals a new "brake" mechanism in motor control in the striatum of the brain, a finding that could open new avenues
    for treating Parkinson's disease and other diseases associated with the striatum.



    Recently, Zhong Haining's research group and Mao Tianyi's research group have jointly developed a new protein kinase A activity probe
    .
    This probe combines
    two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy; 2pFLIM), which enables real-time monitoring of protein kinase A activity within neurons in the cerebral cortex of mice during behavioral processes (Ma et al, Neuron 2018).


    In the latest study, Ma Lei, a postdoc in Zhong's team, with the help of Ding Jun's lab at Stanford University, measured protein kinase A activity in neurons in the striatum at the single-cell level by further combining tiny "gradient index lenses" like needles
    .
    The study found that, contrary to classical theory, protein kinase A activity during exercise was increased
    in both types of striatal neurons that promoted and inhibited movement.

    Further research showed that dopamine does upregulate protein kinase A activity
    in "direct pathway" neurons that promote movement.
    However, to the researchers' surprise, exercise also led to the
    release
    of another neurotransmitter, adenosine.
    Adenosine upregulates protein kinase A activity in neurons of the "indirect pathway" that inhibits movement, thereby enhancing the function of these neurons and inhibiting the movement
    of animals.
    Its ultimate role is to enhance the inhibition of exercise, playing an antagonistic role in dopamine function
    .
    So adenosine is the "brake" corresponding to the "throttle"
    of dopamine.
    Just as the accelerator and brake together provide precise control of the car's movement in a car, dopamine and adenosine can work together to maintain the striatal neurons that promote and inhibit movement in a relatively balanced state, and work together to control the motor system more
    accurately.

    Figure: (left) Schematic
    diagram of the experiment.
    (middle) In animal voluntary locomotion, protein kinase A (PKA) activity is elevated in both striatal spiny projection neurons that promote (dSPN) and inhibit (iSPN) movement
    .
    (Right) Using the adenosine probe developed by Li Yulong's group at Peking University, it was directly detected that movement in the striatum led to an increase
    in adenosine levels.

    As mentioned earlier, an imbalance in the activity of two neurons in the striatum can lead to various motor disorder diseases
    .
    The striatum also has other important functions such as regulating learning and receiving rewards, and its functional imbalance is associated
    with numerous psychiatric disorders.
    In the past, almost all drug research on related diseases has focused on the regulation of dopamine or dopamine receptors
    .
    Now the results of this study may help to devise new strategies
    to treat striatal dysfunction by modulating adenosine or adenosine receptors.
    It is worth mentioning that the receptor of adenosine is also a major site of action of the familiar caffeine: caffeine
    inhibits the function of
    adenosine receptors.
    Drinking coffee is also similar to temporarily lifting the brakes
    applied by adenosine.

    Ma Lei, a postdoctoral fellow at the Vollum Institute of Oregon Health and Science University, is the first author of the paper, and Haining Zhong is the corresponding author
    of the paper.
    Other collaborators include Maozhen Qin, Julian Day-Cooney and Michael A.
    Muniak, postdocs in the Mao Tianyi team at the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, and Omar Jaidar Benavides
    , a postdoc in Ding's team at Stanford University.

    Link to paper: style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);font-size: 12px;" _mstmutation="1" _istranslated="1">
    Open reprint, welcome to forward to Moments and WeChat groups

     
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