Hope for Parkinson's Sufferers

"For many years, scientists have only focused on the brain, how the neurons die and how to stop it," says Agnete Kirkeby, a neurologist at the University of Copenhagen. "But we failed to investigate the causes." Kirkeby's research sheds light on a new aspect of the development of Parkinson's disease, a neurodegenerative disease: a misfolded protein called alpha-synuclein seems to play a crucial role. It migrates from nerve cell to nerve cell in the brain, infecting them, almost like a virus.