Open AccessMolecular, Neurochemical, and Behavioral Hallmarks of Reserpine as a Model for Parkinson's Disease: New Perspectives to a Long‐Standing Model
Author(s) -
Leão Anderson H.F.F.,
SarmentoSilva Aldair J.,
Santos José R.,
Ribeiro Alessandra M.,
Silva Regina H.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
brain pathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.986
H-Index - 132
eISSN - 1750-3639
pISSN - 1015-6305
DOI - 10.1111/bpa.12253
Subject(s) - reserpine , neurochemical , parkinson's disease , neuroscience , dopamine , vesicular monoamine transporter , monoamine neurotransmitter , disease , psychology , construct (python library) , medicine , pharmacology , serotonin , computer science , receptor , programming language
The administration of reserpine to rodents was one of the first models used to investigate the pathophysiology and screening for potential treatments of P arkinson's disease ( PD ). The reserpine model was critical to the understanding of the role of monoamine system in the regulation of motor and affective disorders, as well as the efficacy of current PD treatments, such as L‐DOPA and dopamine agonists. Nevertheless, with the introduction of toxin‐induced and genetic models of PD , reserpine became underused. The main rationale to this drawback was the supposed absence of reserpine construct validity with PD . Here, we highlight classical and recent experimental findings that support the face, pharmacological, and construct validity of reserpine PD model and reason against the current rationale for its underuse. We also aim to shed a new perspective upon the model by discussing the main challenges and potentials for the reserpine model of PD .