Washington, Feb 16: Parkinson’s disease may not be only
responsible for the condition’s distinctive movement problems
but may also affect vision, a new study has revealed.
Parkinson’s, the second most common form of neurodegenerative
disease, principally affects people aged over 60. Its most
common symptom is tremor and slowness of movement
(bradykinesia), but some people with Parkinson’s also experience
changes in vision. Now for the first time, researchers in the
University of York’s Department of Biology have established a
link between a mutation which triggers Parkinson’s and problems
with vision in an animal model. Scientists at York studied the
impact of the most common Parkinson’s-related mutation on nerve
cells in the visual system of the fruit fly, Drosophila. Using
electroretinagram (ERG) technology they found a gradual loss of
function in eye nerve cells with the mutant gene. The fly visual
system is a useful laboratory model as it contains similar
amounts of dopamine to the human eye. However, the