August 2015

August 2015: ’Wings in Motion’

Submitted by: Erin Dolan, Yvonne Nolan, Aideen Sullivan

Erin Dolan is a PhD student in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience under the supervision of Prof Aideen Sullivan and Dr Yvonne Nolan, and is funded by the Molecular Medicine Ireland Clinical and Translational Research Scholarship.

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder in the world, and is characterised by the death of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal pathway of the brain, leading to a significant decrease in the neurotransmitter dopamine. The resulting loss of dopaminergic transmission in this brain region leads to the primary motor symptoms associated with the disease, including a fine tremor at rest, bradykinesia, postural instability and rigidity. The current mainstay of treatment is simply to replace the lost dopamine, however therapy is difficult to optimise and the effects wear off over time.

This image, which depicts an intact rodent substantia nigra with the characteristic “wings” of the pars reticulata, is stained with tyrosine hydroxylase, a marker specific to dopaminergic neurons. Novel therapeutic strategies in Parkinson’s disease aim to either replace the lost dopaminergic neurons (neurorestoration) or to protect the surviving neurons from further insult (neuroprotection), and evaluating the integrity of the nigrostriatal system through tyrosine hydroxylase staining is one of the most effective methods used in current research. This image was taken at 4x magnification on an Olympus BX53 upright microscope and processed using Cellsens software

This image was recently exhibited as part of the BRAINTALK Parkinson’s Community Meeting and Art Exhibition, held in the Glucksman Gallery University College Cork. This event was organised by Dr Shane Hegarty and Professor Aideen Sullivan of the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, UCC, as part of the BRAINTALK project (www.ucc.ie/en/braintalk).

The purpose of the meeting was to bring together People with Parkinson's, Parkinson's researchers and clinicians, to create an interconnected Parkinson's Community in Ireland. Over 200 participants, the majority of whom were People with Parkinson’s and their carers, gathered in the Glucksman Gallery for a variety of presentations by Parkinson’s advocacy groups, People with Parkinson’s, therapists, neurologists and neuroscientists.

 ‘Parkinson’s Community’ art exhibition was launched after the meeting. This included paintings made by People with Parkinson’s in an ‘Exploring Parkinson’s with Art’ workshop , as well as photomicrographs showing the ongoing scientific work by Parkinson’s researchers in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, UCC.

For full details see BRAINTALK website  http://www.ucc.ie/en/braintalk/