Exercise-mimicking Neuroprotective Pathways in Age-Associated Parkinson’s Disease
Description: Exercise has well-documented benefits on the aging brain, protecting against age-associated cognitive impairment and Parkinson’s disease (PD), although the mechanisms that underlie these neuroprotective effects are currently unknown. Importantly, the benefits of exercise remain inaccessible to a large portion of PD patients, either due to advancing disease or associated complications. In our lab we have developed a novel transgenic mouse model that replicates multiple brain-associated benefits even under sedentary conditions, suggesting we have generated a novel exercise-mimetic. In this project, we will test the hypothesis that exercise can reduce PD associated pathology in the brain, using both behavioral exercise interventions and our potential novel exercise-mimicking model. In parallel, we will also determine if aging is a contributing factor to PD-associated toxicity in the brain, by examining for the first time established pathological findings of the pre-formed fibril model in the aging brain. Our studies defining the neuroprotective effects of exercise signaling will help to define therapies that target this process in PD. Given the current promise exercise interventions in clinical trials for other neurodegenerative diseases, this work will have major impact in direct applications of newly-identified exercise-mimicking compounds in PD (ie. exercise-on-a-pill).
Amount: $75,000
Funding type: award
Start date: 2021-09-01
End date: 2022-08-31
Investigators: Constanza Cortes, Tina Ealy, Bradley Yoder, Melinda Cotten, Alice Harding, Melinda Cotten, Ashley Davis
Institution: University of Alabama at Birmingham
Subfield: Neurology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Funded outputs count: 0
Funder award ID: R12
OpenAlex ID: G763977391