News

Weight gain after stopping to smoke tobacco does not significantly minimize for men the protection that smoking is thought to bring against a likelihood developing Parkinson’s disease, according to a Korean nationwide study. “These findings indicate that smoking may be a much more powerful factor than weight gain” in terms of…

The Michael J. Fox Foundation has awarded a $750,000 grant to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists working to make that state’s Parkinson’s disease registry more efficient and of greater value to doctors, researchers and patients alike. Specifically, the 18-month grant will be used to redesign the…

Dopamine appears to shape our perception of the world by conditionally relating innate preferences for things like taste and smell, to physiological states, such as hunger and movement, according to a study of fruit flies. The study, “Valence and State-Dependent Population Coding in Dopaminergic Neurons in the Fly…

People with Parkinson’s disease who use passive coping strategies, rather than active ones, are more likely to experience worse depression, motor impairment, and quality of life, a new study indicates. However, the study’s findings suggest that not all individuals can be accurately classified as using either only active or only…

Researchers have developed tiny magnetic discs that open the possibility of a contact-free mechanical way to remotely stimulate brain nerve cells in people with neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease. The study describing that finding, “Magnetic Vortex Nanodiscs Enable Remote Magnetomechanical Neural Stimulation,” was…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will review Acadia Pharmaceutical’s application asking that Nuplazid (pimavanserin) also be approved to treat hallucinations and delusions associated with various forms of dementia-related psychosis, the company announced. The supplemental new drug application (sNDA) was granted standard review status, and the…

Infusions with plasma from young adults is safe and well tolerated in people with moderate Parkinson’s disease, and appear to result in rapid and sustained improvements in phonetic fluency and self-esteem, according to findings from a small Phase 1 trial. These results not only demonstrate the safety and benefits…

The 6th annual World Brain Day, celebrated Wednesday (July 22), will be dedicated to raising awareness for Parkinson’s disease and promoting patient advocacy. The World Federation of Neurology (WFN) founded and coordinates the event to raise public awareness and promote advocacy related to brain health. This year, the…

A high-resolution imaging approach that could help in diagnosing Parkinson’s disease by enabling physicians to more easily visualize the substantia nigra, the brain region responsible for controlling movement and whose nerve cells are gradually lost to this disease, is the goal of a research group in Australia. The…

A new computer algorithm that guides intracerebral injections to improve drug delivery to the brain has been developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The new technology, dubbed COMMAND (computational mapping algorithms for neural drug delivery), was designed to effectively deliver therapeutic molecules to specific brain structures,…