Erwan Bezard1,2,3, Margaux Teil1, Marie-Laure Arotcarena1, Gregory Porras2, Qin Li3 and Benjamin Dehay1 1Université de Bordeaux, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), IMN, UMR 5293, F-33000 Bordeaux, France 2Motac Neuroscience, F-33270 Floirac, France 3Motac Beijing Services, PRC-100050 Beijing, China Correspondence: erwan.bezardu-bordeaux.fr

Decades of research have identified the pathological and pathophysiological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD): profound deficit in brain dopamine and other monoamines, pathological α-synuclein aggregation, synaptic and neuronal network dysfunction, aberrant proteostasis, altered energy homeostasis, inflammation, and neuronal cell death. The purpose of this contribution is to present the phenocopy aspect, pathogenic, and etiologic nonhuman primate (NHP) models of PD to readers with limited prior knowledge of PD so that they are ready to start working on PD. How NHPs, the closest species to man on which we can model diseases, contribute to the knowledge progress and how these models represent an invaluable translational step in therapeutic development are highlighted.