Internal medicine

Neuroscience

Cholinergic

Disease

Psychology

Parkinson's disease

Cholinergic system

Medicine

The Lancet Neurology

In patients with Parkinson's disease, heterogeneous cholinergic system changes can occur in different brain regions. These changes correlate with a range of clinical features, both motor and non-motor, that are refractory to dopaminergic therapy, and can be conceptualised within a systems-level framework in which nodal deficits can produce circuit dysfunctions. The topographies of cholinergic changes overlap with neural circuitries involved in sleep and cognitive, motor, visuo-auditory perceptual, and autonomic functions.

Cholinergic system changes in Parkinson's disease: emerging therapeutic approaches