In PNAS this week, researchers in New York, Massachusetts, and California collaborated to show how the polyamine pathway contributes to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. The team started by using fMRI to identify regions of the brain stem resistant to the disease and then profiled gene expression levels from postmortem brain regions and identified a decrease in the catabolic polyamine enzyme spermidine/spermine N1-acetyltransferase 1, related to the disease.