Investigating alpha‐synuclein oligomers in the pathogenesis of PD

Specialists have reported new findings on the distribution of alpha‐synuclein (αSYN) oligomers in the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Lewy bodies are a late-stage aggregation of αSYN, and have been considered as a pathological hallmark of PD. But it remains controversial whether Lewy bodies drive neurodegeneration, said Dr Hiroaki Sekiya from the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan.

Presenting at MDS 2020, Dr Sekiya suggested that αSYN oligomers, the early‐stage αSYN aggregation, may play a pathogenic role.