What exactly is happening in the brain of someone with Parkinson’s disease? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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By the time someone with Parkinson’s disease, or PD, has hand tremors, the process of developing the condition is well underway in parts of their brain, with deposition of an abnormal protein called alpha synuclein, Johns Hopkins neurologist Liana Rosenthal explains.

Rosenthal: Alpha synuclein is considered the bad protein and Parkinson's disease, what happens is the alpha synuclein protein gloms up, gathers all together. It becomes kind of a BLOB and when it becomes a BLOB it basically blocks the neuron from working. This alpha synuclein protein which travels from neuron to neuron and the midbrain is when the alpha synuclein is there that's what people actually start to develop symptoms, and then the alpha synuclein continues all the way into the cortex and it keeps going.   :31

Rosenthal says why this abnormal protein develops at all is actively being investigated, with some research pointing to the gut as an area to look further. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.