Emerging novel approaches to drug research and diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common neurode-generative diseases. Genetic factors are involved in <10% of PD cases, while the majority of PD cases have no identifiable genetic factors. All these studies have revealed the heterogeneity of Parkinson’s disease both in pathogenesis and etiology [1, 2]. In the past decade, many well-designed longitudinal studies have clearly elucidated that environmental or behavioral factors can modify the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease and alter the pathological process of PD [2]. Moreover, many factors that were found to be associated with an altered risk of PD in epidemio-logical studies have been confirmed to be neuroprotective or neurotoxic to dopaminergic (DA) neurons in experimental animal models of PD.