Conditions affecting a baby while in the uterus could be a factor in determining whether or not an individual develops Parkinson's disease later in life, an investigator at the National Health Research Institute said.
Ling Zaodung (林兆東), formerly a member of the neurology department at Chicago's Rush University, induced symptoms resembling Parkinson's in rats by injecting their mothers with endotoxins during pregnancy to stimulate the effects of a bacterial infection.
"We found that a low dose of endotoxins administered during the 10th day of pregnancy reduced the number of dopaminergenic neurons by about 25-30 percent compared to the control group," Ling said at a press conference held at the Department of Health yesterday.
"Those rats went on to develop symptoms such as loss of motor control and hypoactivity at 16 months as their number of dopaminergenic neurons decreased further," he said. "This is significant because Parkinson's disease in humans is caused by the loss of dopaminergenic cells."
Ling theorizes that, triggered by a bacterial infection, the mother's immune reaction could affect the development of the growing fetus, causing both a decreased number of dopaminergenic neurons at birth and a hypersensitivity to environmental toxins later on in life, triggering a further loss of dopaminergenic neurons.
"Genetic, in utero and environmental factors are all important," Ling said. "It's not a matter of nature versus nurture."
Ling has been conducting research on this issue since 1994.
He relocated to Taiwan just last year from Chicago, despite the fact that his research was going well there, he said.
"I wanted to be among my own people," said Ling, who is originally from Fuzhou, China, before emigrating to the US.
"However, I cannot return to China for personal reasons," he said, explaining that he and his late father both suffered under the cultural revolution and subsequent social upheaval.
"My father told me to go to Taiwan if I wanted to go somewhere where I could do something for the Chinese people," Ling said. "So when I got the opportunity, I took it."
Ironically, however, it was Ling's US citizenship that made it possible for him to come to Taiwan as a researcher.
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