The Genetics of Parkinson's Disease

The possibility of a major contribution of hereditary factors to the cause of Parkinson's disease (PD) is being reconsidered by many. The studies preceding the 1980s presented conflicting evidence and suffered from procedural difficulties. The emergence of the MPTP hypothesis and the failure of three twin studies to document a strong hereditary component in the early 1980s turned attention toward an environmental cause of PD. However more recent descriptions of deficiencies in genetically-coded biochemical functions in PD, more sophisticated clinical family analyses, reanalysis and extension of the twin studies and the emergence of several large autopsy-proven PD kindreds raise the possibility of an important heritable factor in PD.