HOUSTONâJustin Friendâs parents have doctoral degrees and have worked as university lecturers and researchers. So Mr. Friend might have been expected to head for a university after graduating from high school in Bryan, Texas, five years ago. Instead, he attended Texas State Technical College in Waco, and received a two-year degree in welding.
A flurry of emergent research has linked mitochondrial dysfunction to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. Mitochondrial dysfunction results in impaired ATP generation, loss of cellular repair mechanisms, and cellular inefficiency.
Parkinson's disease is characterized clinically by asymmetric parkinsonism (resting tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity and later postural instability) and pathologically by the loss of neurons, particularly dopaminergic neurons, in the substantia nigra that project primarily to the striatum.