SNCA and Parkinson disease: DA.Vra1-congenic strain rats and their parental DA rats are relevant models to study the genetic regulation of nerve injury because previous studies have found a protective effect of the Vra1 locus, with less neurodegeneration after a severe injury, like ventral root avulsion at the spinal CNS/PNS border (Swanberg et al., 2009), after a traumatic brain injury (Al Nimer et al., 2013), and in toxin- or alpha-synuclein-induced models for Parkinson’s disease (Jewett et al., 2017; Jewett et al., 2018).