The epigenetic changes linked to Parkinson’s disease – a nervous system disorder that afflicts nearly 1 million Americans – are different in men and women, according to a new Rutgers study published in NPJ Parkinson’s Disease. In a postmortem analysis of brain neurons, researchers compared samples from 50 people who died with Parkinson’s and 50 who had no sign of the disease. They found more than 200 genes with different epigenetic marks in diseased and healthy brains – but the affected genes were almost entirely different in men and women. Parkinson’s leads to the death of key neurons in a region of the brain that produces the neurotransmitter dopamine. The epigenetic changes – changes in how genes work but not in underlying genetic code – that contribute to the disease are not fully understood, but the study findings give researchers hundreds more candidates to explore. To read the full story.