RESEARCH

Investigator: Congshu Liao

Parkinson’s disease (PD), the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, presents with both motor and non-motor symptoms. Among these, resting tremor is one of the most frequent motor manifestations, affecting over 70% of the patients. However, no reliable and accessible animal model of resting tremor exists to date, and the underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly defined, limiting therapeutic advances. 

Our lab has found that cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) conditional knockout (CKO) mice represent the first genetic model that recapitulates behavior and electrophysiological features of human PD patients’ resting tremor. In this model, Cdk5 deletion is driven by Cre recombinase under the myogenic factor 5 (Myf5) promoter, targeting specific populations of D1 and D2 medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the striatum (STR). Building on these findings, our lab’s goal is to elucidate the cell-specific circuit mechanisms underlying resting tremor and test whether optogenetic modulation can alleviate the symptom.