Remarkable advances in science and medicine have steadily increased our life expectancy, however, aging is also correlated with neurodegenerative diseases.  What makes these diseases so challenging, is that in the majority of cases, they are sporadic, with no known cause. But what if we aren’t looking at the problem broadly enough? Perhaps classifying neurodegeneration as an age-related disease is too limited a view? Today we sit down with Dr. Deanna Benson, professor of Neuroscience at the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai here in New York City. There, she studies the formation of synapses, and their plasticity using state of the art imaging techniques, to understand how circuit formation is affected by Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. We discuss if it’s possible to detect Parkinson’s in young adulthood, the progress that her lab has made in understanding the mechanism of Parkinson’s, and the advice she has for young scientists hoping to leave their own mark on the scientific world.