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Converging into a Unified Model of Parkinson’s Disease Pathophysiology

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Cortico-Subcortical Dynamics in Parkinson's Disease

Part of the book series: Contemporary Neuroscience ((CNEURO))

Early models of basal ganglia functional organization pointed at changes in spontaneous activity as the underlying basis of akinesia, the main clinical manifestation of Parkinson’s disease. The “classical” model posits that an imbalance between the direct and indirect pathways results in an increase in the average firing rate of basal ganglia output neurons, tonic inhibition of motor thalamo-cortical circuits, and reduced motor output [1, 2]. However, after nearly 20 years most researchers in the field would probably agree in that there is little evidence to support this hypothesis [3, 4]. Current models posit that dopamine depletion impedes movement by promoting excessive oscillatory synchronization of basal ganglia neurons. According to this view, spontaneous oscillation and synchronization could induce resonance at certain frequencies, precluding the encoding of other frequencies more relevant to movement [5] and/or spatial segregation of information flow [6]. Nevertheless, the mechanism underlying abnormal oscillatory synchronization is a matter of debate. Current models point at intrinsic oscillations in the GP-STN network [7, 8] or at changes in the gain of pathways conveying and reinforcing cortical oscillations [9, 10].

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Kuei Tseng for his early contribution to this research project in Argentina and to the following agencies and institutions for funding, Secretaría de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva, Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (FONCYT, Argentina; PICT2004-05-26323; PME2003-29), Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBACYT M056), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Argentina; PIP5890), and International Cooperation Program SECyT-ECOS (A05S01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Fisiología de Circuitos Neuronales, Departamento de Fisiología y Biofísica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, (C1121ABG), Argentina

    Camila L. Zold, Mariano Belluscio, Fernando Kasanetz, Pablo E. Pomata, Luis A. Riquelme, Francois Gonon & Mario Gustavo Murer

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  1. Camila L. Zold
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  2. Mariano Belluscio
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  7. Mario Gustavo Murer
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Correspondence to Mario Gustavo Murer .

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    © 2009 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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    Zold, C.L. et al. (2009). Converging into a Unified Model of Parkinson’s Disease Pathophysiology. In: Tseng, KY. (eds) Cortico-Subcortical Dynamics in Parkinson's Disease. Contemporary Neuroscience. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-252-0_9

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