New Animal Models for Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common progressive neurodegenerative disorder primarily affecting individuals between the ages of 50 and 60, although young adults and even children can be affected by this devastating disease (Lang and Lozano 1998). In the last few years, significant progress has been made into unraveling the causes of PD. In particular, genes linked to familial PD have been identified yielding fresh avenues of investigation. In other neurodegenerative disorders animal models of human familial-linked disease have provided tremendous insight and clues into the pathogenesis of these disorders.