Current treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD) are primarily symptomatic, leaving a need for treatments that mitigate disease progression. One emerging neuroprotective strategy is remote tissue conditioning, in which mild stress in a peripheral tissue (e.g. a limb) induces protection of life-critical organs such as the brain. We evaluated the potential of two remote tissue conditioning interventions – mild ischemia and photobiomodulation – in protecting the brain against the parkinsonian neurotoxin MPTP. Further, we sought to determine whether combining these two interventions provided any added benefit.

Male C57BL/6 mice (n = 10/group) were pre-conditioned with either ischemia of the leg (4 × 5 min cycles of ischemia/reperfusion), or irradiation of the dorsum with 670 nm light (50 mW/cm2, 3 min), or both interventions, immediately prior to receiving two MPTP injections 24 hours apart (50 mg/kg total). Mice were sacrificed 6 days later and brains processed for tyrosine hydroxylase immunohistochemistry.

Stereological counts of functional dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta revealed that both remote ischemia and remote photobiomodulation rescued around half of the neurons that were compromised by MPTP (p < 0.001). Combining the two interventions provided no added benefit, rescuing only 40% of vulnerable neurons (p < 0.01).

The present results suggest that remote tissue conditioning, whether ischemia of a limb or photobiomodulation of the torso, induces protection of brain centers critical in PD. The lack of additional benefit when combining these two interventions suggests they may share common mechanistic pathways. Further research is needed to identify these pathways and determine the conditioning doses that yield optimal neuroprotection.