Marisa Wexler, MS,  senior science writer—

People with Parkinson’s disease who are given deep brain stimulation (DBS) tend to have more stable long-term life quality and motor function than do patients treated with medications only, according to a new study. Deep brain stimulation, called DBS for short, is a surgical treatment for Parkinson’s disease…

The virus that causes COVID-19 is able to infect dopamine-producing brain cells and trigger a specific pattern of dysfunction that has been linked with the development of Parkinson’s disease, a study reports. “Given our findings, we posit that over the coming years, there is a need to closely monitor…

Risvodetinib, an experimental therapy that Inhibikase Therapeutics is developing for Parkinson’s disease, was well tolerated both by healthy volunteers and Parkinson’s patients in a Phase 1 clinical trial. That’s according to the full results from the Inhibikase-funded work, detailed in a study titled “A Phase I, Randomized,…

Being a caregiver for someone with Parkinson’s disease can be difficult, but for family members, providing care is not a burden, it’s a partnership, an opportunity to express their love. That’s according to interviews with 16 current and former Parkinson’s care partners. The findings were published in the…

A new study by scientists in Australia may be set to overturn more than a decade of thinking that the use of the KTP molecule could work as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Titled “Interaction of PINK1 with nucleotides and kinetin” and published in Scientific Advances,…

Scientists have proposed a new way to classify Parkinson’s disease based on biological changes associated with the disorder. “Without looking at the biology, you can’t get answers. And without answers, we won’t have much-needed breakthroughs in Parkinson’s,” Anthony Lang, MD, a researcher at the Krembil Brain Institute in Canada,…

ProMIS Neurosciences announced arriving at a lead candidate vaccine against the misfolded alpha-synuclein protein, which the company plans to develop as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. The potential vaccine, known as PMN400, is moving into preclinical testing in animal models of Parkinson’s. “We are…

Air pollution may increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease, particularly in people who are already genetically predisposed to develop the disorder, a study shows. “We discovered that individuals with elevated genetic susceptibility and heightened exposure to air pollutants faced a markedly heightened risk of [Parkinson’s],” its researchers wrote. “Therefore,…

Levodopa Cyclops, an inhaled version of levodopa that PureIMS is developing as a treatment for off episodes with Parkinson’s disease, safely delivers levodopa to the body faster than an existing inhaled formulation of the therapy. That’s according to results from a company-sponsored clinical trial (NCT06037590) comparing…

A new test that can detect extremely small concentrations of clumped alpha-synuclein may help to detect Parkinson’s disease and related disorders in early stages. The test, reportedly able to spot single protein fibrils, was described in the study, “Toward the quantification of [alpha]-synuclein aggregates with digital…