Emerging roles of leptin in Parkinson’s disease: Chronic inflammation, neuroprotection and more?

•Leptin and its receptor ObR play a critical role in Parkinson‘s disease etiology and progression via its neuroinflammatory properties.•Experimental work is needed to further elaborate leptin signaling in disease onset and progression.•Large-scale in-human studies of leptin and other adipokines taking into account multiple covariates are warranted.•In view of the dual character of leptin (neuroprotective versus pro-inflammatory), other adipokines (e.g., ghrelin, adiponectin) may represent better targets for PD.