European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

EMERGING TARGETS FOR THE TREATMENT OF PARKINSON’S DISEASE- AN OVERVIEW

*Dr. Jyoti Sharma, Dr. Pulkit Kaushal and Dr. Jyoti Kaushal

ABSTRACT

Parkinson‘s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease. There is a loss of nigrostriatal neurons leading to motor deficits such as rigidity, tremors, bradykinesia. The exact cause of parkinson‘s disease (PD) is unknown in most of the cases. The most commonly used treatment of Parkinson disease is dopamine replacement therapy. The commonly used drugs are levodopa, COMT inhibitors, MAO inhibitors etc. Drugs like levodopa which is the mainstay of PD therapy, loses efficacy over a period of time and causes dyskinesias and behavioural problems & ultimately development of both motor and non-motor problems. Moreover, available therapies do not prevent neuron degeneration and provide only symptomatic relief. The new PD treatment should tackle the two unresolved problems, one is moving from symptom alleviating to disease modification and the second is to reduce the growing prevalence of non-motor disease symptoms such as loss of balance, autonomic dysfunction and cognitive impairment. The newer emerging therapies for the treatment of Parkinson‘s disease are Neuroprotective agents like Coenzyme Q10, Adenosine receptor antagonists, Neurotrophic factors, Glutamate antagonists, Antioxidants, PDE inhibitors, Monoclonal antibodies, Safinamide and Gene therapy. Several obstacles in developing therapies for Parkinson‘s exist, which include: a lack of a clear understanding about the biological processes leading to neuronal loss and a lack of a biomarker for determining progression and severity of the disease. Hence, despite availability of numerous effective drugs which provide short term relief; still research is going on to develop promising drugs and newer strategies to provide long term benefit by modifying the disease process.

Keywords: Parkinson‘s disease, Neurotrophic, Neuroprotective.