Congratulations to Dr. Adithya Gopinath for presenting “Dopamine neuron interactions in the neuroimmune circuitry in Parkinson’s disease” at the 2024 Society for Neuroimmune Phamacology in Charleston, South Carolina.
“Our prior findings showed that in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and in PD mice, there is an increase in DAT-expressing immune cells, which is reduced following successful treatment. Another group out of Israel showed that activating the same neurons (dopamine neurons) produces changes in the immune system, reinforcing our findings. However, it was still unclear how the signals from the dopamine neurons get to the immune system. In this ongoing study, we have established that dopamine neurons send projections to the dorsal vagal complex (a part of the vagus nerve) and then down to the spleen. Thus, this neuronal circuit between midbrain dopamine neurons and spleen may explain, in part or in whole, the immune changes we observe in PD. “