Jonathan Brotchie
Chief Executive Officer Atuka
Seminars
Wednesday 9th December 2026
Why Do Neural Circuits Matter? Implications for Developing Novel Therapeutics for Parkinson’s Disease
9:30 am
- Advances in AI-assisted discovery and human cellular models demand functional validation of how target modulation affects living networks, their capacity to maintain function and their vulnerability to disease.
- Canonical and non-canonical parkinsonian symptoms emerge from dysfunction in biologically embedded circuits. Understanding progression also requires us to examine feedback between neuronal activity and neuronal vulnerability.
- Compensation and reserve influence how networks maintain stable patterns of function and when they transition into dysfunction. Understanding what sustains these states—and what governs transitions between them—creates opportunities to preserve function, delay deterioration and promote recovery.
- Circuit-based rodent and non-human primate models enable us to evaluate therapeutics that alter established network states, modify compensation and reserve, and influence the likelihood, timing and reversibility of transitions between states.
