News

Long forgotten by his own country, 18th-century English-born physician James Parkinson was honored at a global conference March 10-11 to mark two centuries of progress in understanding the disease that today bears his name. Organized by the International Parkinson and Movement Disease Society (MDS), the event paid homage to…

Partners in Parkinson’s has opened a video gallery online to help educate people about the disease and to support services to Parkinson’s patients worldwide. The group is also planning to host information events in two U.S. cities this year. The gallery’s aim is to bring essential information to patients that can…

A sublingual spray of apomorphine shows promising results in a Phase 1 pilot study for the treatment of severe uncontrollable motor fluctuations in late-stage Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, the British specialty drugmaker Renown Pharma has announced. Apomorphine is currently the only drug approved specifically to treat “off” episodes in patients with…

Researchers at two world-renowned institutions have presented a new theory of how Parkinson’s disease (PD) and its symptoms develop— challenging the dominant view that PD emerges as the protein alpha-synuclein spreads from neuron to neuron in an infection-like manner. In an opinion piece, “The Threshold Theory for Parkinson’s Disease,” the two…

The MC1R gene is associated with ginger hair and fair skin and has been considered a risk factor for melanoma (skin cancer). Now, a new study hypothesizes that this gene also may increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease by affecting dopamine production. The study “The Melanoma-Linked “Redhead” MC1R Influences…

NeuroDerm’s Phase 2 Parkinson’s disease (PD) trial of ND0612H — a continuous infusion of levodopa and carbidopa delivered by a small belt pump — has met both primary and key secondary endpoints by demonstrating that the treatment effectively reduced “off-time” and increased the number of patients with advanced…

Patients who have had deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat diseases that are not approved for the technique may not be reimbursed by an insurance company for the procedure’s costs, even though they were initially told the treatment was covered, according to a new study published in JAMA Neurology. In the…

The Parkinson’s Foundation has received $250,000 to come up with new ways to eliminate improve healthcare for women that have Parkinson’s disease (PD). The foundation’s project, “Women and PD TALK,” comes out of a recognition that historically, PD research has been too focused on men. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI),…

Scientists have developed a new computer-based method that shows great promise in improving the accuracy of diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The study, “Ensembles of Deep Learning Architectures for the Early Diagnosis of the Alzheimer’s Disease,” was published in the International Journal Of Neural Systems journal.

Georgetown University will conduct a clinical trial of Novartis’ cancer therapy Tasigna (nilotinib) as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The Phase 2 trial follows a report last year that Tasigna can improve both cognitive and movement symptoms in Parkinson’s patients. Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) researchers will perform the trial…