Intensive exercise slows the course of Parkinson’s disease, study finds

Neuroscientists from the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University, Rome Campus, and the A. Gemelli IRCCS Polyclinic Foundation found that intensive exercise could slow the course of Parkinson’s disease and described the biological mechanisms. The finding could pave the way in which for brand spanking new non-drug approaches.

The study “Intensive exercise ameliorates motor and cognitive symptoms in experimental Parkinson’s disease by restoring striatal synaptic plasticity” is published within the journal Science Advances. The research was led by Catholic University, Rome Campus and A. Gemelli IRCCS Polyclinic Foundation, in collaboration with several research institutes: the San Raffaele Telematic University Rome, CNR, TIGEM, University of Milan, and IRCCS San Raffaele, Rome.

The research was funded by the Fresco Parkinson Institute to Latest York University School of Medicine and The Marlene and Paolo Fresco Institute for Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders, the Ministry of Health and MIUR (each related to the PRIN 2017 call and CNR-MUR calls, two different grants). It identified a brand new mechanism answerable for the positive effects of exercise on brain plasticity.

The corresponding creator, Full Professor of Neurology on the Catholic University and director of the UOC Neurology on the University Polyclinic A. Gemelli IRCCS Paolo Calabresi, said: “We’ve discovered a never observed mechanism, through which exercise performed within the early stages of the disease induces helpful effects on movement control that will last over time even after training is suspended”.

“In the longer term, it could be possible to discover latest therapeutic targets and functional markers to be considered for developing non-drug treatments to be adopted together with current drug therapies”, he added.

BACKGROUND

Previous work has shown that intensive physical activity is related to increased production of a critical growth factor, the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

The authors were in a position to reproduce this phenomenon in response to a four-week treadmill training protocol in an animal model of early-stage Parkinson’s disease, and to show, for the primary time, how this neurotrophic factor determines the helpful effects of physical activity within the brain.

THE STUDY.

The study, whose leading authors are Drs. Gioia Marino and Federica Campanelli, researchers on the Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University, Rome, provides experimental support to the neuroprotective effect of exercise by utilizing a multidisciplinary approach employing different techniques to measure the improvements in neuronal survival, brain plasticity, motor control and visuospatial cognition.

The most important effect observed in response to day by day sessions of treadmill training is a discount within the spread of pathological alpha-synuclein aggregates, which in Parkinson’s disease results in the gradual and progressive dysfunction of neurons in specific brain areas (the substantia nigra pars compacta and the striatum – constituting the so-called nigrostriatal pathway), essential to motor control.

The neuroprotective effect of physical activity is related to the survival of neurons releasing the neurotransmitter dopamine and with the resultant striatal neurons’ ability to specific a type of dopamine-dependent plasticity, elements otherwise impaired by the disease.

Because of this, motor control and visuospatial learning, which rely upon nigrostriatal activity, are conserved in animals that practice intensive training.

Neuroscientists have also found that BDNF, whose levels increase with exercise, interacts with the NMDA receptor for glutamate, enabling neurons within the striatum to reply efficiently to stimuli, with effects that persist beyond the exercise practice.

Professor Paolo Calabresi said: “Our research team is involved in a clinical trial to check whether intensive exercise can discover latest markers to watch the disease progression slowing in early-stage patients and the profile of the progression of the disease. As Parkinson’s disease is characterised by essential neuroinflammatory and neuroimmune components, which play a key role within the early stages of the disease, the research will carry on investigating the involvement of glial cells, highly specialized groups of cells that provide physical and chemical support to neurons and their environment. This may allow us to discover molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the observed helpful effects”, he concluded.