This research was headed by Drs. George Roth and Donald Ingram at the National Institute on Aging's Gerontology Research Center in Baltimore, MD, in collaboration with Drs. Andrea Mastrangeli and Ronald Crystal of Cornell University Medical School. Roth and Ingram's team used an inactivated adenovirus to help with the transfer of a DNA fragment necessary for repairing a neurotransmitter receptor deficiency in the brain of rats. The transferred DNA was successfully incorporated into the rats' own DNA, which was then able to produce a protein that served as a receptor for the neurotransmitter, dopamine.
Neurotransmitters are chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells.
Dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with the regulation of complex movements, is severely depleted in diseases such as Parkinson's. The number of dopamine receptors is also severely diminished in the brains of people with Huntington's disease when there is neurodegeneration in areas usually rich in this receptor. Normal aging is also accompanied by a continuous loss of dopamine receptors in this same brain region called the neostriatum. Furthermore, loss of these receptors appears to be associated with motor dysfunction. The researchers found a marked increase in the concentration of the dopamine receptors in the treated areas of the rat brain when compared to levels found in the brains of the control rats.