Vercise Genus, a fourth-generation system for deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat people with Parkinson’s disease, is now available in the U.S.,  Boston Scientific, which markets the system, announced. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the system’s conditional use with full-body MRI scans, following a similar…
Sleep problems associated with Parkinson’s disease, as well as ways of managing such problems, were the focus of expert discussion in a recent webinar. The webinar, “Night Fight with Parkinson’s: Acting Out Dreams, Insomnia and Other Sleep Issues…
Scientists have found evidence that BMP5 and BMP7, two bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) that have been found to play a role in the development of dopamine-producing neurons, may help slow or even stop the progression of Parkinson’s disease. They discovered in a mouse model of Parkinson’s that the two…
A $670,000 grant by the Michael J. Fox Foundation will go toward advancing a technology platform that might lead to a smell test to detect Parkinson’s disease (PD) in its early stages, allowing an earlier start to treatment and, possibly, leading to better therapies. The grant, given to…
Neither a patient’s sex nor the degree of disease progression substantially affects the manifestations of sleep disturbances in Parkinson’s disease, a study reports. More research into this “very common” and life-affecting problem — and into other non-motor symptoms — of Parkinson’s is needed, its researchers said. The study,…
Visual dysfunction and its underlying brain changes can identify Parkinson’s disease patients at higher risk of cognitive decline, who might benefit most from future clinical trials, according to two new studies. The studies, “Organisational and neuromodulatory underpinnings of structural-functional connectivity decoupling in patients with Parkinson’s disease”…
A branch of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a $3.1 million, multiyear grant to a research team to study changes in speech, and look at movement, in Parkinson’s patients given bilateral deep brain stimulation (DBS). The grant from the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) was…
Ten weeks of lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Italy led to a worsening of cognitive, behavioral, and motor symptoms in people with Parkinson’s disease, particularly those with mild cognitive impairment, a study shows. These findings add to previous reports linking COVID-19-related confinement to significantly…
People with schizophrenia spectrum disorder have an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease later in life, according to both regional and nationwide data from Finland. This higher risk may be associated with medication-induced changes in the brain’s dopamine system — also affected in Parkinson’s patients — or disease-associated mechanisms, and…
Dormant viruses lying hidden in the nervous system can give rise to Parkinson’s disease, according to a newly-published biological model. The article describing this finding, “How microcompetition with latent viruses can cause α synuclein aggregation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and eventually Parkinson’s disease,” was published in the Journal…
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