A 45-year-old man initially deemed to have depression was later diagnosed with parkinsonian syndrome following a skin biopsy that detected alpha-synuclein, a protein that forms toxic clumps in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease, according to a case study from researchers in Miami. After receiving a combination of carbidopa…

A framework called the neuronal alpha-synuclein disease integrated staging system (NSD-ISS) to stage patients in the early stretch of Parkinson’s disease, or who have yet to manifest symptoms, can help predict how quickly they may progress to clinically meaningful milestones. In a study led by Tanya Simuni, MD,…

People with Parkinson’s disease who have orthostatic hypotension — that’s where the blood pressure drops suddenly upon standing up from a sitting or lying position — appear more likely to develop heart and digestive problems, act out their dreams, and go through motor fluctuations, a study finds. These clinical…

CND Life Sciences has been awarded a $4.2 million grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) toward a study that will evaluate the use of an alpha-synuclein skin test to aid in diagnosing Parkinson’s disease and tracking its progression. The Syn-Q clinical trial…

Targeting a membrane protein called TMEM16F may help reduce the spread of toxic clumps, or aggregates, of alpha-synuclein — a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease — across the brain, according to a new study by a team in Israel. The scientists found that a genetic variant of the TMEM16F gene…

An investigational treatment for Parkinson’s disease known as GT-02287 safely led to a roughly 53% increase in GCase enzyme activity, as measured in dried blood spots from treated healthy adults relative to those given a placebo in a Phase 1 clinical trial, its developer, Gain Therapeutics, reported. This…

Crushed dried seeds of the jujube fruit, a traditional herbal medicine also known as Chinese or red date, eased the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s and helped with neurogenesis, the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain, in a mouse model of the disease. In a study led…

Researchers have developed a method to detect clumps of alpha-synuclein protein, a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, within extracellular vesicles (EVs) purified from blood, providing a possible aid to Parkinson’s diagnosis before symptoms appear. EVs are tiny membrane-bound sacs released from cells that can carry a variety of molecules, including…

A type of RNA structure called G-quadruplex, or G4 — a four-stranded RNA structure that forms when calcium enters cells in response to stress — may offer a scaffold for the alpha-synuclein protein to clump together and become toxic to nerve cells in Parkinson’s disease, research suggests. In a…

Sunbird Bio’s blood test to indirectly detect toxic clumps of alpha-synuclein protein in the brain, a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, may help yield an accurate Parkinson’s diagnosis, according to data from a clinical study. The company presented the results in a poster, “Using neural derived EV-bound biomarkers in…