[Postmortal diagnosis of Parkinson's disease]

Parkinson's disease is a continuously progressive degenerative disorder of the central, peripheral and enteric human nervous systems. Not only the substantia nigra, but also a number of other components of the motor and limbic systems, as well as the autonomic regulation, suffer heavy damages. Only a few of the many types of nerve cells in the human central nervous system develop the characteristic Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites. They are composed primarily of aggregated alpha-synuclein and lead to the premature destruction of the affected neurons. Due to the selective neuronal vulnerability, a distinctive distribution of changes occurs within the central nervous system, leading to a corresponding loss of functionality in many systems. The changes occur in an ordered timely fashion. The ascending pathological process begins within the brain at the glossopharyngeal and vagal areas, nearly destroys the substantia nigra, and reaches the mesocortex of the gray matter. From here it expands to further areas of the neocortex, thereby marking the end phase of the disease.