News

OccamzRazor has received $6.1 million in investments to support its artificial intelligence (AI)- based platform aimed at accelerating the identification of new therapeutic targets for Parkinson’s disease. With the technology, which uses AI to analyze data from many published sources, novel treatment targets can be identified and…

Multiple cognitive difficulties, especially problems with memory, are quite common among people in the later stages of Parkinson’s disease, a study in these patients reported. Its researchers found evidence of difficulties that ranged verbal learning to comprehension, with memory most severely affected in 64% of the patients evaluated, and…

Data from a new U.K. study with the most diverse group of patients ever reported show that Parkinson’s disease symptoms — including tremors, cognitive difficulties, epilepsy, and hearing loss — can emerge up to 10 years before a diagnosis. Moreover, ethnicity or socioeconomic status were not found to be associated with…

Short-term treatment with levodopa does not significantly ease speech difficulties in people with early Parkinson’s disease, a new study indicates. Results suggest that monitoring changes in speech could be useful for tracking the progression of Parkinson’s in patients on treatment. The study, “Short-term effect of dopaminergic…

Machine learning — a form of artificial intelligence that allows a computer to adapt, analyze, and infer from patterns in data — can distinguish by voice people with Parkinson’s disease from those without it and track disease stages by continued changes in voice quality, a study reported. Using speech recordings,…

An extract from the plant Tabebuia impetiginosa, which has been used for centuries in traditional medicines of South America, eased Parkinson’s disease symptoms in rat models, a study reported. Treatment aided the animals’ locomotion, eased evident stiffness, and raised dopamine levels in brain tissue, its researchers wrote. The study, “…

Offering more weekly exercise classes at a higher intensity over a wider geographical area may help to instill  better exercise habits in people with Parkinson’s disease, a study suggested. The study, “Associations between exercise classes and self-reported exercise by people with Parkinson’s disease at Parkinson’s foundation centers…

Australian researchers have received a $1.37-million grant to assess the potential of an early diagnostic test for Parkinson’s disease. The test, developed by scientists at the UNSW Medicine & Health’s EMBL Australia Node in Single Molecule Science, is able to quantify the number of alpha-synuclein aggregates — a hallmark…

Parkinson’s disease patients don’t appear to be at an increased risk for side effects after getting the COVID-19 vaccination compared with the general population, and reported having fewer reactions to it than healthy participants in a small study. “Our data showed few [adverse events] reported after…

A modified form of vitamin B3 called nicotinamide riboside (NR), taken as an oral supplement, increased levels of an energy production molecule in the brain and altered brain metabolism over one month in a small group of newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease patients, according to results of a Phase 1…