EPO and Parkinson disease: Feng et al. (2014) demonstrated that the neuroprotective effect of neuropeptide orexin-A in an in vitro PD model could be explained by HIF-1α induction, followed by the expression of its downstream targets, including VEGF and EPO. Systemic EPO administration also modulates long-term synaptic plasticity (Almaguer-Melian et al., 2016), has antioxidant effects when injected into the striatum (but not into the substantia nigra), and reduces inflammatory responses (Thompson et al., 2020).