News

Parkinson’s disease can be characterized as two different subtypes: one that starts in the brain and one that starts in the gut, a recent study suggests. This knowledge may open the door for the development of more personalized therapies, which could be based on the particular disease pattern of…

Spinal cord stimulation can effectively decrease pain, and also may help alleviate motor symptoms, in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD), regardless of whether patients have previously undergone deep brain stimulation, a small study suggests. The study, “Single arm prospective multicenter case series on the use of…

The Parkinson’s Foundation has expanded its PD GENEration national study to include at-home genetic testing and virtual counseling in Spanish as well as English. Opened in 2019 through the organization and partly supported by Biogen, PD GENEration offers Parkinson’s (PD) patients free genetic testing plus…

New guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends that dental amalgams — a silver-colored tooth filling that contains mercury — no longer be used with select groups of people, including those with neurological disorders like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s. Dentists should instead use mercury-free…

Human stem cells can repair Parkinson’s disease-damaged neural circuits and restore motor function in mice, a recent study found. The study, “Human Stem Cell-Derived Neurons Repair Circuits and Restore Neural Function,” was published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Stem cells are able to continuously divide…

The Engineering and Physical Research Sciences Council (EPRSC) at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has awarded researchers at Imperial College London with a £5.5 million ($7.07 million) grant to develop a non-invasive technology that monitors the activity of individual brain cells. The grant was awarded by the…

Although Parkinson’s disease (PD) is largely known for tremor and other motor symptoms, the vast majority of patients in an informal survey said they noticed non-motor issues, such as cognitive changes, first. The one-question Facebook survey, conducted by the medical device company PhotoPharmics, was reported to draw more…

Orthostatic hypotension, a sudden drop in blood pressure when changing positions, can significantly affect both function and quality of life for people with Parkinson’s disease. However, this non-motor symptom — typically attributed to later disease stages — is not associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s and…

The International Linked Clinical Trials (iLCT) program, a collaborative effort from The Cure Parkinson’s Trust (CPT), the Van Andel Institute (VAI), and now the John Black Charitable Foundation (JBCF), has pledged $6.75 million over three years to support clinical trials of potential Parkinson’s disease treatments.

The Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s initiative has awarded a $6 million grant to a research team looking to define the molecular connections between aging and Parkinson’s disease. The three-year grant, issued by the Michael J. Fox…