Ageing, cellular senescence and Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases and continues to pose major challenges for neurology. It has long been clear that age is the decisive risk factor – but the mechanisms of how biological ageing and neuronal degeneration interact have so far been incompletely understood. In recent years, a cellular process has increasingly become the focus of research: senescence. It describes a state of irreversible cell cycle arrest, accompanied by profound metabolic changes and a pro-inflammatory secretion profile.