News

Researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have learned that oxidative stress, a main driver in sporadic Parkinson’s Disease, affects the parkin protein – essential to clear damaged proteins and mitochondria in cells – in the same manner that genetic mutations do. The findings help researchers better understand sporadic PD. The molecular dysfunction…

Platelets contribute to amyloid-β deposits in blood vessels in the brain by promoting the formation of Aβ aggregates that are central to Parkinson’s disease, but a heart medication — the anti-platelet drug clopidogrel — can help to stop these plaques from forming, researchers at Örebro University in Sweden reported. This last finding, from a…

While Parkinson’s disease is mainly associated with motor deficits, recent research shows that patients suffering this devastating disease are also plagued by difficulties in to communicate clearly. In an extensive review, Thomas Holtgraves and Chelsea Cadle from Ball State University in Indiana tease out which areas of communication might…

Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) has recently joined a Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) effort by agreeing to collect induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from 85 people in the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI). The project, ‘Golub Capital iPSC PPMI Sub-study’, is sponsored by Golub Capital and run by…

PhotoPharmics, Inc. is currently conducting a pivotal study to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of specialized phototherapy for the treatment of  Parkinson’s disease (PD). Accumulating evidence shows that the eyes are involved in the development of Parkinson’s disease, since PD patients have damaged retinal dopamine neurons. Recent discoveries…

An inexpensive, portable biosensor device developed by researchers at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory (LNNano) in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, has proven capable of detecting molecules associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases,  and certain types of cancer. Essentially a single-layer organic nanometer-scale transistor on a…

Maintenance laxatives can relieve patients with Parkinson’s disease from a progression of rigidity, according to a newly released study audit. The results further point strongly to a contribution of gut factors to the disease mechanisms. In the recently published retrospective study, researchers from King’s College London,…

Two enzymes that play an important role in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration, and whose inhibition was seen to improve disease symptoms in fruit fly models, have been identified. Moreover, inhibition of one of these enzymes with a drug-like compound was found to reverse movement defects in the flies characteristic of diseases like…

Scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have derived 10 induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) lines from Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients that carry the most common mutations associated with the disease. These cell lines and related genomic information will be made available to the larger scientific community, and PD models created…

Lund University researchers followed a Parkinson’s disease patient who had undergone neuronal transplantation, and reported the patient experienced long-term “major clinical benefits,” including the restoration of normal dopamine function. Importantly, transplant-derived cell reinnervation was evident for almost 25 years, although the disease again began to progress some 14 years after transplantation. The study, “…