Recent studies have shown the presence of Lewy bodies within the enteric nervous system (ENS). Early onset gastrointestinal symptomatology prior to motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease has recently raised the possibility that lesions in the ENS may develop early in the course of the disease, prior to the appearance of cytopathology in the substantia nigra neurons, and thus the study of the ENS may help to understand the cytopathology of Parkinson's disease. These data and the ease of obtaining samples from patients by routine colonic biopsies have led to the use of the SNE as a study model in our line of research. Our main objective is to study the dopaminergic neurons of Meissner's and Auerbach's plexuses from both proximal and distal colon samples from a Parkinsonian rat model. The studies are carried out by means of high-resolution morphological analyses.

Parkinson's, colon, enteric nervous system, Meissner's submucosal plexus, Auerbach's myenteric plexus, Golgi apparatus, intracellular trafficking

• Cell Biology