{"id":210512,"date":"2025-04-04T01:06:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T06:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/parkinsons-protein-clumps-in-heart-nerves-could-offer-new-treatment-path"},"modified":"2025-04-04T01:06:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T06:06:06","slug":"parkinsons-protein-clumps-in-heart-nerves-could-offer-new-treatment-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/parkinsons-protein-clumps-in-heart-nerves-could-offer-new-treatment-path","title":{"rendered":"Parkinson\u2019s protein clumps in heart nerves could offer new treatment path"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/parkinsons-protein-clumps-in-heart-nerves-could-offer-new-treatment-path2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Parkinson\u2019s doesn\u2019t just affect movement and the brain\u2014it may also impact the heart, according to new research from the University of Surrey. Scientists from Surrey\u2019s School of Veterinary Medicine suggest that targeting a key protein outside of the brain could help manage Parkinson\u2019s-related heart issues.<\/p>\n<p>In a study published in <a href=\"https:\/\/physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/epdf\/10.1113\/EP092261\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Experimental Physiology<\/i><\/a>, Surrey researchers studied mouse models and found a harmful buildup of the alpha-synuclein protein, which is associated with Parkinson\u2019s disease, in a nerve cluster near the heart (the stellate ganglia). These nerves are part of the autonomic nervous system, which controls heart rate and rhythm.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers found that 27% of neurons in the nerve cluster contained aggregated alpha-synuclein, forming similar toxic clumps seen in the brains of Parkinson\u2019s patients. This finding suggests that Parkinson\u2019s could disrupt heart function, not just movement and <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/brain+activity\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">brain activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parkinson\u2019s doesn\u2019t just affect movement and the brain\u2014it may also impact the heart, according to new research from the University of Surrey. Scientists from Surrey\u2019s School of Veterinary Medicine suggest that targeting a key protein outside of the brain could help manage Parkinson\u2019s-related heart issues. In a study published in Experimental Physiology, Surrey researchers studied [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}