Disorders of the Nervous System
Author: Soledad Yamila Barrientos Eduards | Email: barrientoseduards@gmail.com
Soledad Yamila Barrientos Eduards1°, Lucia Roncoroni1°, Gustavo Ezequiel Perez1°, Sebastian Risau Gusman1°, Diana Lorena Franco1°
1° 1- Medical Physics Department, Centro Atómico Bariloche, CNEA-CONICET, Bariloche, Argentina
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative syndrome affecting millions of people worldwide. It is characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms that affect the quality and life expectancy of patients. In fact, there are non-motor symptoms that develop even before the onset of classic motor problems, such as REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), characterized by loss of muscle atonia during the REM sleep phase. Notably, 90% of people with RBD eventually develop PD, making RBD an early indicator of PD. The origin of these symptoms is considered to be the neurodegeneration of dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra compacta (DA-SNc) and the most frequent treatment is the administration of dopamine derivatives (L-DOPA). This treatment is only able to relieve a limited number of motor symptoms. In this project we postulate that L-DOPA-resistant PD symptoms may originate from neurodegeneration across multiple brain regions and associated circuit dysfunctions. Drosophila melanogaster is a good model to study PD because it can recapitulate key characteristic of the disease. To gain insights of the neuronal circuits that are underlying of locomotor defects and movements disorder during REM sleep we will deregulate genes associated with PD and RBD in sleep circuits and will evaluate defects in locomotor activity, sleep architecture and neurodegeneration in young and adult flies. These experiments aim to give insights into lesser-studied symptoms of PD.