Review

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Pharmacology & Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, 1205 LH, Nashville, TN 37232, USA

* Author for correspondence

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Pharmacology & Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, 1205 LH, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.

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Email the corresponding author at jeff.conn@vanderbilt.edu

Published Online:16 Apr 2012https://doi.org/10.2217/nmt.12.6

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Abstract

SUMMARY Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disorder predominantly characterized by motor symptoms including bradykinesia and resting tremor. The gold standard of treatment for PD remains dopamine replacement therapy, which eventually fails due to continued progression of the disease and the development of debilitating side effects. Recent breakthroughs are providing the first major advances in the development of fundamentally new pharmacological strategies for the treatment of PD that do not rely on dopamine replacement strategies, but rather aim to reduce the overactive indirect pathway within the basal ganglia. In this article, we will review the role of metabotropic glutamate receptors within the basal ganglia and discuss the potential for modulation of metabotropic glutamate receptors as a treatment for PD.

Papers of special note have been highlighted as: ▪ of interest ▪▪ of considerable interest

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Financial & competing interests disclosure

PJ Conn is employed by Vanderbilt University (TN, USA). Over the past year, he has served as a consultant or received honoraria from Millipore Corp. (MA, USA), Karuna Pharmaceuticals (MA, USA), Seaside Therapeutics (MA, USA), NIH (MD, USA), Michael J Fox Foundation (NY, USA), Stanley Center of the Broad Institute (MIT/Harvard, MA, USA), Leiber Institute (Johns Hopkins, MD, USA), Washington University (MO, USA) and the University of Montreal (QC, Canada). PJ Conn holds equity in Seaside Therapeutics and Karuna Pharmaceuticals. He has received research support from NIH (grant no. R01 NS031373-15), Seaside Therapeutics, Janssen Pharmaceutica (Beerse, Belgium), Michael J Fox Foundation and Vanderbilt University. PJ Conn is an inventor on multiple issued and pending patents for novel ligands that interact with neurotransmitter receptors and transporters. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

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Therapeutic potential of targeting metabotropic glutamate receptors for Parkinson’s disease

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