A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital has uncovered a chain of events that connects genetic alterations, disruptions in lipid metabolism and the manifestation of Parkinson’s disease in patients. The findings, published in the journal Brain, bring forward the possibility of identifying people at risk before symptoms appear and developing strategies to treat the disease rather than manage the symptoms.

“Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease, affecting more than 10 million people worldwide. We know more than 100 genes that increase the risk of developing the disease but, in most cases, we do not understand how the genetic change leads to the condition,” said corresponding author Dr. Joshua Shulman, professor of neurology, neuroscience and molecular and human genetics at Baylor. He also is an investigator and co-director of the Duncan NRI.

Previous studies have shown that many Parkinson’s susceptibility genes participate in lipid metabolism and that disrupting some lipid functions may directly promote brain alterations that have been linked to the disease’s onset and progression.