Oleh Hornykiewicz, researcher of the Center Brain Research Medical University of Vienna, hopes that in the next ten years a treatment will be achieved that will halt the progression of the neurodegenerative process involved in Parkinson's disease: "We can get to know how to neuroprotect the process so that it does not progress. In any case, he assured that "it is not possible to give a concrete deadline ".

Professor Oleh Hornykiewicz, who gave a lecture on the initial damage of Parkinson's disease at the research center Applied Medicine of the University of Navarra (CIMA), considers that the core topic to advance in the research "would be to understand the cause of the disease and act on the specific mechanism that sets in motion the loss of neurons". However, he acknowledges that "it is more likely that it will be possible to find out how to stop the progress of the disease".

The Polish-born researcher discovered and described the dopamine deficit in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients in 1961. The neurodegenerative disease is mainly characterized by the loss of neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain that produce dopamine, which is responsible for regulating movement. Therefore, this finding was the fundamental step in the development of levodopa, a drug that converts into dopamine naturally and improves the status of patients, so that the life expectancy of Parkinson's patients today is practically the same as that of the general population. Currently, in Spain it is estimated that between 100,000 and 120,000 people suffer from the disease, a figure that reaches four million in the European Union as a whole.

Caution in investigations

Professor Hornykiewicz was cautious about both cell therapy and other subject research. Thus, he affirms that "cellular treatments are a promising avenue, although the fundamental problem is that the cells that secrete dopamine do so irregularly", in addition to the possibility of creating side effects.

Likewise, with respect to the information on stem cells, although he does not consider that there is too much hope or false expectations in the research, he does consider that it is "counterproductive". And, he asserts, "it puts pressure on researchers to try to do things; but the research has to keep its own pace, which requires security and veracity from the data". Similarly, Hornykiewicz assured that "there is no test that stem cells, as of today, will replenish the dopamine deficit". Thus, sample is cautious and cautious for the future.

partnership with the CIMA

Both Professor Oleh Hornykiewicz and his disciple, also researcher Christian Pifl, work at partnership with CIMA at the University of Navarra. "The partnership is aimed at finding out how the lack of dopamine in the early stages of Parkinson's disease is compensated for and trying to increase the effectiveness of these mechanisms," explains Pifl.

Likewise, Dr. José Obeso, a specialist at the department of Neurology and Neurosurgery of the Clínica Universitaria de Navarra and researcher of CIMA, points out that project focuses on an experimental model on Parkinson's disease: "As experts in the study of dopamine, they will study the brain of our experimental model with a series of hypotheses that we have".

In this way, Obeso adds, they are trying to understand "how the brain compensates for the lack of dopamine because, in this way, we can try to increase this mechanism to make it even more effective so that the symptoms of the disease do not progress". Although the disease is mild externally sample , 80% of the dopamine has already been lost by then and the disease has been evolving for between seven and ten years. During this time the brain has been compensating for the lack of this substance.