People with REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), a sleep disturbance that can precede Parkinson’s disease, have higher levels of toxic alpha-synuclein protein clumps in their stool than do Parkinson’s patients and healthy people, a study showed. Alpha-synuclein aggregates, toxic to cells, are thought to contribute to Parkinson’s and other…
Microglia — the brain’s primary immune cells — can help to keep motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease from quickly advancing in early disease stages, work in a mouse disease model suggests. Its findings support studies indicating both a neuroprotective and damaging role for these immune cells over the disease’s…
People with sporadic Parkinson’s disease and those with Parkinson’s-associated mutations in the GBA gene show a distinct immune cell profile in the blood relative to healthy people, a study showed. In turn, Parkinson’s patients carrying disease-causing LRRK2 mutations had an immune cell profile comparable to people without any disease.
Researchers have discovered a new genetic link between platelets in the bloodstream and Parkinson’s disease, according to a large-scale genetic study that investigated associations between blood measures and neurological and psychiatric diseases. Variation in platelet size, called platelet distribution width (PDW), was found to be broader in Parkinson’s patients…
Subthalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) may bring benefits to people with Parkinson’s regardless of whether the disease is caused by a gene mutation or appears in patients with no associated mutations, a study in Spain found. Researchers investigated this surgical treatment’s use in people with LRRK2 and PRKN mutations — …
People with Parkinson’s disease are more likely to report a good quality of life if their caregivers are not strained, a new study suggests. “As caregiver strain was found to be related to patients’ QoL [quality of life], improvement in QoL for PD [Parkinson’s disease] patients may hinge on…
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a rehabilitation center located in Chicago, Illinois, will conduct a study that will use Datos Health‘s remote care platform Open Care to monitor physical activity in people with Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders. “The research study will allow us to determine the feasibility…
Men with mild-to-moderate Parkinson’s disease may experience greater effects of the disease on certain aspects of their life than women, according to a study of patients living in the southeastern U.S. Specifically, men were found to have worse motor symptoms, daily life-related impairments, disease-related quality of life, and more…
Nervtex’s MoDAS artificial intelligence (AI) system has become the first video-based, AI-powered medical device to win regulatory approval for assessing motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, according to a company press release. The AI system, which analyzes motor symptoms based on video recorded on a…
Suppressing the activity of carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1 (CPT1) — a key enzyme in the metabolism of fatty molecules — led to reductions in motor and non-motor symptoms in two mouse models of Parkinson’s disease, a new study shows. These benefits were associated with a normalization of blood sugar, or…
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