Understanding Parkinson disease
The neurones that die in Parkinson disease normally make the neurotransmitter dopamine and function to control movement. Everyone loses these cells as they get older; in fact you can lose over 60 per cent of these cells before any changes are noticeable, but in people with Parkinson disease the process seems to speed up. No one knows what triggers this loss. Researchers are concentrating on finding ways of replacing the lost cells and lost dopamine.
