The Shaking Palsy - Advances in Our Understanding of Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a debilitating movement disorder that affects over 100,000 people in the United Kingdom. Using a combination of genetic analysis, epidemiology and molecular biology, our knowledge of how this disease occurs and of the mechanisms that lead to cell death in the brain, has increased greatly over the last two decades. In spite of this knowledge, a cure for the disease remains out of our reach. Here, we review the advances that have aided the quest for a cure and the role that UCL has played in this research -whilst looking forward to what the future holds for patients with PD.