Italy's foremost professor in neurodegenerative disorders speaks at university

Professor Marcello Lotti, Professor of Medicine at the University of Padua, Italy, recently gave a talk at the University on the Role of Neurotoxicants in Neurodegenerative Disorders.

Professor Lotti (pictured left) told the audience that he supports the view that there is clinical and epidemiological evidence for many chemicals being involved in neurodegenerative disease after heavy exposure, but this is not the case after low level exposure.

Nevertheless there are numerous claims that low level exposures to neurotoxicants may indeed be involved in neurodegenerative disorders.

To investigate these hypotheses, Professor Lotti proposed a matrix approach, where, while departing from compound-driven research, the general patterns of injury and repair are challenged by chemicals under consideration. Examples of the interplay between injury and repair mechanisms in the nervous system were discussed during the talk in this context.

He considered in particular the promotion of axonopathies, where the severity of damage can be modulated by non-neurotoxic chemicals because of their effects on repair/compensation mechanisms.

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