Mark D Bevan
Northwestern University, IL·Neuroscience
Parkinson's disease (PD) slowly destroys dopamine-producing neurons in a brain region called the substantia nigra. These neurons help control movement.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
- Topics
Parkinson's disease
parkinsonism
basal ganglia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Determine how basal ganglia indirect-pathway activity and movement stay normal in presymptomatic MitoPark mice despite ongoing loss of dopamine neurons, using electrophysiology, imaging and behavior.
- Identify the mechanisms by which indirect-pathway function and movement progressively deteriorate in symptomatic MitoPark mice, a model with gradual dopamine neuron degeneration.
- Test whether chemogenetically adjusting indirect-pathway activity in symptomatic MitoPark mice rescues motor function and slows degeneration of substantia nigra dopamine neurons.
More about the research
By the time PD is diagnosed, many of these cells and their connections have already been lost. This suggests the brain compensates for years before symptoms appear. Researchers do not know how movement is preserved early or why it eventually fails. One idea centers on the basal ganglia, deep brain circuits that select and shape movement. It proposes that abnormal activity in their 'indirect pathway' worsens motor control. It may also add stress to the remaining dopamine neurons and speed their death. Standard toxin models cannot test this, because they remove dopamine all at once rather than gradually.
Why it matters
Understanding how the brain compensates for early dopamine loss, and why that compensation fails, could explain the hidden early stage of Parkinson's disease. If correcting abnormal circuit activity restores movement or slows neuron loss in mice, it could point to circuit-based therapies. Such therapies might ease symptoms or modify disease course for people with Parkinson's.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Alexandra Nelson
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Neuroscience
Test whether local inhibitory synapses within the striatum, and inhibitory inputs from the globus pallidus, are altered in and contribute to levodopa-induced dyskinesia, using in vivo and ex vivo electrophysiology, optogenetics, and chemogenetics in parkinsonian mice.
Daniel Foster
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Neuroscience
Test whether M4 PAMs, drugs that boost the M4 acetylcholine receptor, reduce repetitive over-grooming in SAPAP3 knockout mice and other mouse models of repetitive behavior.
Adema Ribic
University of Virginia, VA·Neuroscience
Determine how premature birth alters synchronous intrinsic activity, the coordinated spontaneous firing of neurons, in the neonatal mouse prefrontal cortex using in vivo electrophysiology in preterm mice born one day early.
The school
Northwestern University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 536 research doctorates a year.
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