The delta-opioid receptor and Parkinson's disease.

The delta-opioid receptor and Parkinson's disease. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2018 Aug 03;: Authors: Huang JZ, Ren Y, Xu Y, Chen T, Xia TC, Li ZR, Zhao JN, Hua F, Sheng S, Xia Y Abstract Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common degenerative neurological disease leading to a series of familial, medical, and social problems. Although it is known that the major characteristics of PD pathophysiology are the dysfunction of basal ganglia due to injury/loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta dopaminergic and exhaustion of corpus striatum dopamine, therapeutic modalities for PD are limited in clinical settings up to date. It is of utmost importance to better understand PD pathophysiology and explore new solutions for this serious neurodegenerative disorder. Our recent work and those of others suggest that the delta-opioid receptor (DOR) is neuroprotective and serves an antiparkinsonism role in the brain. This review summarizes recent progress in this field and explores potential mechanisms for DOR-mediated antiparkinsonism. PMID: 30076686 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: CNS Neurosci Ther Source Type: research