Back

Sex-dimorphic effects of neuromelanin buildup in rodent nigral dopamine neurons: implications for sex-biased vulnerability in Parkinson's disease

D'Addario, S. L.; Massaro Cenere, M.; Cossa, F.; Scaricamazza, S.; Nesci, V.; D'Ottavio, G.; Caprioli, D.; Ferri, A.; Vila, M.; Ledonne, A.; Mercuri, N. B.

2025-04-23 neuroscience
10.1101/2025.04.18.649338 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Neuromelanin (NM) is a dark pigment accumulating with age in human substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) dopamine (DA) neurons, conferring the dark look that inspired nigral areas name. Despite NM has long been associated with Parkinsons disease (PD), as melanized neurons favorably degenerate during disease development, NM functions within SNpc DA neurons are still mostly elusive. Here, by exploiting an NM-producing rat model generated by viral vector-induced expression of human Tyrosinase (hTyr), we inspected NM impact on nigral DA neurons survival and activity, on mitochondrial functionality of SNpc, and behaviors resembling non-motor and motor PD symptoms. Our data reveal sex dimorphism in NM effects on nigrostriatal dopamine circuit, with sex-biased alterations in neuronal firing activity and underlying intrinsic currents, nigral mitochondrial functions, and non-motor PD symptoms (anxiety). In conclusion, this study discloses unrealized NM effects within nigral DA neurons, advancing our comprehension of sex-specific features shaping sex-biased vulnerability to PD.

Matching journals

The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.