Objective/Rationale:
Animal models of Parkinson’s disease can provide investigators with tools to examine the causes of the disease itself as well as potential therapies for treatment. One of the most widely used models of PD in rodents is the injection of the neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) to the striatum to produce degeneration of nigrostriatal dopamine (DA) neurons over the course of many weeks. The present proposal seeks to systematically determine the role of the inflammatory molecule tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) in this model of PD.