AC Immune is receiving additional funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research to continue developing positron emission tomography (PET) tracers for alpha-synuclein, a protein linked to Parkinson’s disease. The idea behind the project is to use alpha-synuclein as a biomarker of Parkinson’s. The PET tracers will help…
Weight loss is common in Parkinson’s disease and can affect quality of life. A study has identified factors that can predict weight loss in patients who are in the early stages of Parkinson’s. They include being a woman, being older, having posture problems, having low cognitive scores, and using levodopa as a dopamine…
Herantis Pharma has started the first clinical trial of cerebral dopamine neurotrophic factor (CDNF) as a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The first patient in the Phase 1/2 clinical trial has enrolled at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. The study will also involve another hospital in Sweden…
People with diabetes who use a group of drugs called glitazones are 28 percent less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease, report researchers from the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway. But the study, published in the journal Movement Disorders, did not offer any insights into why that might be,…
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) in St. Louis developed a new computational method that can help predict if a patient will be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease based solely on medical records. This new predictive algorithm was revealed in the report “A predictive model to identify Parkinson…
The abnormal alpha-synuclein characteristic of Parkinson’s disease interacts with the prion protein PrP, initiating a series of events that culminate in neuronal degeneration and cognitive impairment, a European study found. But a drug from the caffeine family prevented this interaction, reversing degeneration and Parkinson’s symptoms in mice. The study, “…
Researchers reported a significant relationship between sleep disturbances in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and their disease-related disability, including tremors, impaired posture, and slowed movement. Also, excessive daytime sleepiness and REM sleep behavior disorder were more common in PD patients than control subjects. The study, “…
Poor adherence to antidepressants is correlated with an increase in all-cause mortality in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), a new study suggests. Based on the findings, the study’s authors recommend that neurologists, psychiatrists, and primary-care physicians prioritize the use of, and adherence to, antidepressants as indicated. The study, “…
The olfactory bulb is significantly smaller in Parkinson’s disease patients compared to healthy individuals, a new study found, providing an anatomical explanation for the loss of the sense of smell in the early stages of the disease. The discovery, “A ventral glomerular deficit…
Recent research shows that the Parkinson’s disease (PD) protein, alpha-synuclein, blocks pro-survival signals from an important brain growth factor. These findings provide new reasons why neurons degenerate and are lost in patients with PD. The finding, “TrkB neurotrophic activities are blocked by α-synuclein, triggering dopaminergic celldeath in Parkinson’s…
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