Laser Used to Deliver Dopamine in Hope for Parkinson’s Treatment

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In people suffering from Parkinson’s, errors of metabolism in dopaminergic neurons of substantia nigra play an important role in pathophysiology of the disease. One of the functions of dopamine is in helping control muscle movement. Unfortunately, simply injecting Parkinson’s patients with dopamine does not cure the disease, since the chemical needs to be delivered in precise quantities over extended time period just where it’s needed. To help with that, researchers at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan and University of Otago, New Zealand have developed a method of encapsulating dopamine within liposomes that can then be released using a femtosecond laser.

These liposomes are spherical structures made of fat cells that are very stable when inside the human body. They are able to ferry their cargo throughout the body, which will only interact with cells and tissues when the liposomes are ruptured by some external force. The researchers utilized…