ABSTRACT
Restoration means “to bring back to a former or original state, to repair or renew.”1 In Parkinson’s disease (PD), a restorative therapy should return anatomical and functional integrity to the nigrostriatal dopamine system and reverse clinical symptoms and signs. There are currently no restorative therapies in PD, but two new classes of drugs, the neuroimmunophilin ligands and glial cell linederived neurotrophic factor, hold great promise. In in vitro experiments and in animal models of PD, these drugs have the ability to promote axonal regeneration and repair the damaged nigrostriatal system. This chapter reviews the mechanism of action, preclinical, and clinical studies of these two agents.
