Treatment with psilocybin — the hallucinogenic agent in magic mushrooms — may help to prevent damage to the brain following mild head injuries, according to a new study done in rats. Head injuries are an established risk factor for Parkinson’s disease, as well as Alzheimer’s and other…
People with dementia related to Parkinson’s disease are at increased risk of death after undergoing surgery to address broken hips, a new study reports. Data suggest this increased risk is higher in people with Parkinson’s-related dementia than other types of dementia. “Our analysis of dementia subtypes reveals that not…
A compound formed by nerve cells as they break down cholesterol appears to be involved in the formation of toxic alpha-synuclein protein clumps in the brain — clumps, or aggregates, that are tied to Parkinson’s disease — making this byproduct a potential therapeutic target, a new study in patients…
Male and female mice show different responses to toxic alpha-synuclein clumps, a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, with males experiencing faster and more aggressive neurodegeneration and females showing earlier brain damage before motor symptoms appear, a study has found. Understanding these sex differences could help develop better, more personalized…
Estrogen, a female sex hormone, was found to enhance the neuroprotective effects of cytisine, a smoking cessation drug, in a female mouse model of Parkinson’s disease. That’s according to a study conducted by researchers at Texas A&M University, which analyzed the effects of cytisine in female mice that had…
A grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) will allow Australia-based Kazia Therapeutics to explore the potential of paxalisib — an investigational anticancer drug now being tested in clinical trials — as a repurposed treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The research grant will fund…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Medtronic’s BrainSense adaptive deep brain stimulation (DBS) system and electrode identifier to treat people with Parkinson’s disease. Among available DBS systems, BrainSense is the first to automatically adapt its stimulation for a more personalized treatment approach, the company noted. Specifically,…
Subsense has received $17 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of a nanoparticle-based brain-computer interface to help monitor and treat people with neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease. The funding will help the company develop nanoparticles for precise stimulation and monitoring of brain activity, along with hardware…
A global team of researchers has identified the molecular switch in a protein complex that regulates how cellular waste disposal mechanisms clean up and recycle unwanted materials — like the toxic alpha-synuclein protein clumps, or aggregates, that drive the death of nerve cells in Parkinson’s disease, according to a…
Damage to a part of the brain called the amygdala plays a key role in vision problems for people with Parkinson’s disease, a study suggested. Vision problems are relatively common as people get older. In typical aging, vision problems arise because of issues in the eyes and vision-processing pathways,…
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