Researchers found the same deformities in the nuclear membrane of neural stem cells in brain tissue samples from deceased Parkinson's disease patients and found that correcting the mutation that causes the deformities reverses the phenotype. Researchers with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies studied induced pluripotent stem cells derived from Parkinson’s patients carrying the luceine-rich repeat kinase 2 mutation previously associated with the disease, then repaired the cells in vitro. The research, published in the journal Nature, "is a way for us to start asking questions about how we can use a selective small molecule to maybe reverse a disease phenotype for Parkinson's," said Jeremy Nichols, a researcher at The Parkinson’s Institute.