Abstract
This chapter examines environmental factors for Parkinson's disease (PD) using rodent genetic models. In the absence of a strong genetic component at the root of the large majority of PD cases, a role for the environment as a contributing factor has received much attention. Almost all genetic models of PD have been subjected to environmental stressors, in particular MPTP, with the hope to precipitate an elusive dopaminergic cell loss. The main rationale for exposing genetic rodent models of PD to environmental toxicants has been to generate a more complete model of the disease by inducing nigrostriatal cell loss in mice that failed to reproduce this pathological hallmark of PD. This chapter suggests that despite their high construct validity, genetic rodent models of PD do not reproduce all aspects of the human disease. The absence of nigrostriatal cell loss, despite the presence of a mutation that kills these neurons in humans, suggests that efficient defense mechanisms are triggered in the transgenic or knockout mice. Identifying these defense mechanisms may lead to useful insights into ways to counteract the pathophysiological process in PD.
Published Version
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