Parkinson’s disease: Neurotransmitter and neurotoxin receptors and their genes

Studies of the changes in brain neurotransmitter and neurotoxin receptors in Parkinson’s disease now provide information about the state of many receptors. The status of dopamine receptors in the striatum, the possibility that specific neurotoxin receptors exist and the likelihood that receptors in other brain regions, including pathologically involved substantia nigra and cerebral cortex, can provide meaningful information about brain function and the disease are reviewed. Increasing information about these receptors is also available from molecular biological studies of dopamine receptors, and of genes encoding several of the putative candidate sites for possible neurotoxin action. Such approaches are providing an increasingly important perspective on Parkinson’s disease therapeutics and possible pathogenesis.