Publication: HealthDay News

UCLA Expert: Kimberly Paul: Assistant Professor, Neurology, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
 

Synopsis: Pesticide exposure has long been associated with Parkinson's, but investigators hadn't been able to pinpoint specific culprits.

UCLA News: A research team, led by Paul, paired epidemiology and toxicity screening to isolate which among the many thousands of pesticide products could be involved. "We were able to implicate individual agents more than any other study has before," she said. The 10 pesticides her team identified included insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. They were directly toxic to dopaminergic neurons, which are involved in voluntary movement. Death of these neurons is a hallmark of Parkinson's, the study noted.

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