Potential neurotoxic « agents provocateurs » in Parkinson’s disease

Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD), one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders associated with aging, is characterized neurochemically by abnormal and profound loss of nigrostriatal dopamine (DA) neurons. A prominent current view is that the excessive degeneration of the dopaminergic system is the outcome of extended insults by environmental neurotoxins or endogenous neurotoxic factors in genetically vulnerable or susceptible individuals. Recent insights into the identities and mechanisms of potential neurotoxic species, which span pesticides, environmental contaminants including heterocyclic amines with beta-carboline (betaC) and isoquinoline (IQ) structures, endogenous DA metabolites or intermediates, neuromelanin, metals, and infectious agents, are presented.