News

Scientists at the Duke University School of Medicine have received two grants totaling $18 million to investigate how different cells in the brain and in the gut may foster the onset and progression of Parkinson’s disease. The grants from the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative will fund two…

A neurological surgery professor from Weill Cornell Medicine and his team will use a three-year, $8.9 million research grant to investigate how abnormal protein clumps in the gut can spread to the brain and help drive the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. This grant, from the Aligning Science Across…

A clinical study is assessing whether a specific type of rehabilitation therapy — called neurologic music therapy — may help people with Parkinson’s disease recover fine motor skills, such as those required for writing, self-care, and fine object manipulation. The trial (NCT03049033) is underway at the University of…

Altoida announced a three-year collaboration with a Greek university to investigate whether the company’s precision neurology medical device can aid in the early detection of Parkinson’s disease. The agreement between Altoida and scientists at the Bioinformatics and Human Electrophysiology Laboratory (BiHELab), part of Ionian University in Corfu,…

Scientists have created wearable, flexible sensors — which can be integrated into fabrics, and detect touch pressure as well as measure body movements — that may be used to gauge motor disease progression in people with Parkinson’s, a study reported. Placing the sensors in the soles of patients’ shoes…

A new tool that analyzes speech using real-world, web-based recordings — participants are recorded via a webcam and a microphone connected to a personal computer or laptop — identified Parkinson’s disease patients with 74% accuracy, a study demonstrated. Moreover, this speech tool — called Parkinson’s Analysis with Remote Kinetic-tasks,…

More research is needed to understand how alpha-synuclein — a protein whose accumulation is characteristic of Parkinson’s disease — affects cells other than nerve cells, particularly microglia, the resident immune cell of the brain. A pair of researchers at the Van Andel Institute in Michigan raised this argument after…

Neuropathy, or nerve damage, was linked to abnormally low levels of the vitamins B6 and B12 in three people with Parkinson’s disease, according to a case report. “All patients were consecutively identified within one year at a single institution,” the researchers wrote, which suggests that neuropathy associated with low levels…

Reduced dopamine signaling leads to abnormal activity in the motor cortex— the part of the brain chiefly responsible for controlling movement — a new study in mice illustrates. This result helps to shed light on the biological underpinnings of Parkinson’s disease, which is characterized by abnormally low dopamine levels…

The first Parkinson’s patient has been dosed in a Phase 1 clinical trial that is testing IkT-148009, an investigational oral therapy being developed by Inhibikase Therapeutics to slow or stop disease progression. “We are pleased to begin dosing patients in our Phase 1b study,” Milton Werner, PhD,…