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Parkinson’s disease

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·April 17, 2024·5 min read

AI Revolutionizes Hunt for Parkinson’s Treatments

Researchers employed AI to fast-track the discovery of treatments for Parkinson's disease. They utilized machine learning techniques to screen millions of compounds and successfully identified five promising candidates that prevent the harmful clumping of alpha-synuclein, a key protein in Parkinson’s pathology.

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·April 16, 2024·4 min read

Monoclonal Antibody Slows Rapid Motor Decline in Parkinson’s

Prasinezumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting alpha-synuclein aggregation, shows promise in slowing motor deterioration in rapidly progressing Parkinson's disease (PD), according to an exploratory analysis from the phase 2 PASADENA clinical trial. While there are currently no disease-modifying treatments for PD, prasinezumab offers a potential breakthrough by specifically binding to aggregated alpha-synuclein, a key driver of PD pathology.

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·April 16, 2024·4 min read

Emotional Bodily Sensations Altered in Parkinson’s Patients

People with Parkinson’s disease experience altered bodily sensations related to basic emotions differently from healthy individuals. Utilizing electronic body maps, participants identified how emotions like anger, happiness, and sadness manifested physically, noting significant shifts in sensation locations, particularly with anger moving from the chest to the abdomen.

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·April 15, 2024·7 min read

Brain Area Linked to Attention Control Identified

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the subthalamic nucleus, a treatment for Parkinson's disease, may influence more than just motor control. This treatment, which mitigates Parkinson's symptoms such as tremors, also appears to affect patients' ability to shift their attention between tasks.

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·April 11, 2024·6 min read

Nose vs. Gut: Unraveling Parkinson’s Toxic Origins

A pivotal hypothesis paper challenges existing theories on Parkinson's disease origins, proposing environmental toxicants as key culprits. This study suggests that Parkinson's can start from the brain's smell center or the gut, influenced by inhaled or ingested toxins.

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·April 4, 2024·4 min read

Genetic Link Between Left-Handedness and Neurological Disorders

A new study utilizing UK Biobank data has unveiled the genetic roots of left-handedness, pinpointing rare variants in the beta-tubulin gene TUBB4B significantly associated with this trait. These findings not only shed light on the complex interplay between genetics and brain asymmetry but also link left-handedness with neurodevelopmental disorders through shared genetic pathways.

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·April 4, 2024·7 min read

Fecal Bacteria Transplant May Improve Parkinson’s Symptoms

A new clinical trial revealed fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) as a potential new treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD), showing significant improvement in motor symptoms. The study explores the connection between the gut microbiome and Parkinson's, finding that patients with PD often exhibit altered gut bacteria and increased intestinal inflammation.

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·April 3, 2024·6 min read

Cracking Parkinson’s: Proteins’ Aggregation Unveiled

Researchers employing computational models have made a significant leap in understanding the aggregation of alpha-synuclein protein, crucial in Parkinson’s disease development. This study marks the first to map the molecular dynamics of these proteins in detail, revealing how environmental factors like molecule crowding and ionic changes enhance aggregation.

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·March 26, 2024·3 min read

Early Signs of Dementia Found in Middle Age

A new study reveals that Lewy body disease, a major neurodegenerative disorder second only to Alzheimer's, may start developing in individuals as early as middle age, well before symptoms manifest. Utilizing unique Finnish forensic autopsy data, the study found markers of the disease in 9% of individuals over 50 without any clinical diagnosis of Parkinson’s or Lewy body disease.

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·March 12, 2024·6 min read

Hallucinations Enhance Social Number Misjudgment

Hallucinations, particularly presence hallucinations often experienced by individuals with Parkinson's disease, can lead to an increased overestimation of social numbers, such as the number of people in a room. This phenomenon does not extend to inanimate objects like boxes, underscoring the social nature of this overcounting.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Psychology

·March 4, 2024·4 min read

How Impulse Control Disorders Alter Processing of Risky Decisions

A novel study explores how Parkinson's disease patients, particularly those with impulse control disorders (ICD) induced by dopaminergic medications, process the outcomes of risky decisions.

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·February 23, 2024·6 min read

Mapping the Brain’s ‘Dysfunctome’

Researchers achieved a breakthrough in mapping the brain's 'dysfunctome'—key dysfunctional circuits linked to disorders like Parkinson’s, dystonia, OCD, and Tourette’s syndrome. Utilizing deep brain stimulation (DBS) data from 261 patients worldwide, they pinpointed specific frontal cortex circuits crucial for symptom improvement.