Grant: Operating Grant

Recently we have shown that proteins in our brain, specific types of enzymes, can metabolically inactivate environmental neurotoxins (e.g. pesticides, drugs); these toxins cause a number of brain diseases, more often in men, and older people. This project uses an animal model to investigate the impact of having lower (like people with common genetic variants of this enzyme) or higher (due to some common drugs increasing them) brain levels of this enzyme on toxicity from neurotoxins associated with Parkinson's disease, tardive dyskinesia and essential tremor. This project both establishes, for the first time, a role for these brain enzymes in neurotoxicity, which may explain some of the variability among people in their risk for these diseases, and importantly, provides the basis for future development of novel prevention and treatment approaches.