Steve Bryson, PhD, science writer —

The number of people with early-stage Parkinson’s disease who reported sleep disturbances increased over the course of a five-year longitudinal study, with insomnia being the most common sleep problem among this patient population. The frequency of other sleep problems such as…

The natural compound kaempferol — which acts as a potent antioxidant — can reduce the physical and behavioral symptoms of Parkinson’s in a fruit fly model of the disease. According to the researchers, this molecule may exert its protective effects by…

Working-age adults with Parkinson’s disease who received deep brain stimulation (DBS) showed better social and occupational functioning than those who received the best medical therapies alone, a study has found. As such, the authors suggest, DBS could be prescribed to…

Researchers have developed a highly sensitive but low-cost method to detect dopamine, which may help in the early diagnosis of several disorders characterized by abnormal dopamine levels such as Parkinson’s disease, a study has found.  For the first time, the new…

A direct causal link was found between two major underlying features of Parkinson’s disease — mitochondrial defects and lysosomal malfunction — in dopamine producing neurons that lacked the PARK2 gene, which is mutated in some cases of early-onset disease, a study discovered. …

With a single treatment, scientists were able to transform brain cells into functioning neurons that restored dopamine — the signaling molecule deficient in people with Parkinson’s disease — to normal levels, eliminating motor symptoms in a Parkinson’s mouse model. The results,…

Lower than usual activity in a complex that recycles proteins in cells — called the proteosome — leads to an age-related buildup of protein aggregates in the brains of fish, similar to that seen in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, a study reported. Low proteasome activity…

A survey of people with Parkinson’s disease in Iran found significantly higher levels of anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic among them compared with the general population, a study reported.  Patients’ anxiety was primarily driven by fears of contracting the virus as well as not having…

An oxygen-free (anaerobic) formulation of dopamine infused directly into the brain of monkeys with induced Parkinson’s safely improved both their motor and cognitive symptoms, according to a new study. These findings support a proof-of-concept clinical trial of this treatment approach, adapted to people with the disease.

Delivering a gene therapy directly to the substantia nigra, an area of the brain affected by Parkinson’s disease, led to sustained protein production for up to eight years, a post-mortem of analysis of two patients revealed. The therapy’s use failed to show…