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Parkinson's & Movement disorders news

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Skin swabs could detect Parkinson's disease up to seven years before symptoms appear

A new study has revealed promising progress in developing a non-invasive sampling method to detect early signs of Parkinson's disease—up to seven years before motor symptoms appear—by analyzing the chemical makeup of ...

Medications

Weekly injection offers steady Parkinson's medication, reducing need for daily pills

A new weekly injectable drug could transform the lives of more than eight million people living with Parkinson's disease, potentially replacing the need for multiple daily tablets.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

'Harmless' virus might trigger Parkinson's disease, researchers say

A common virus once thought harmless to humans might be linked to Parkinson's disease, a new study says. The germ, Human Pegivirus (HPgV), was found in half the autopsied brains of patients with Parkinson's, but not in any ...

Neuroscience

Burden of tremor recognized for Parkinson's disease patients

Some 25 years ago, a young Parkinson's disease investigator, Robert Hauser, MD, stepped to the podium at an American Academy of Neurology Conference to present findings from his patient survey that didn't quite jibe with ...

Neuroscience

Q&A: Are mitochondria the key to a healthy brain?

Elizabeth Jonas first got interested in mitochondria by chance. In 1995, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale, working at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she was trying to record electrical ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Theater can improves emotional symptoms of people with Parkinson's

A research team at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, working with the Hospital Sant Pau in Barcelona, has shown that theater can improve the emotional well‐being of people with Parkinson's disease. The study, "Efficacy ...

Alzheimer's disease & dementia

Blood test shows promise for early dementia with Lewy Bodies diagnosis

A research team has made a significant finding that sheds new light on dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB). The team was led by Associate Professor Ayako Okado-Matsumoto from the Department of Biology at Toho University in collaboration ...

Genetics

Gene therapy may slow loss of motor function in ALS

Researchers have developed a gene therapy that significantly slowed motor function loss in preclinical models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), offering new hope for treating the devastating neurodegenerative disease.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

'ALS on a chip' model reveals altered motor neuron signaling

Using stem cells from patients with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Cedars-Sinai has created a lifelike model of the mysterious and fatal disease that could help identify a cause of the illness as well as effective treatments.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Ear wax as a possible screening medium for Parkinson's disease

Most treatments for Parkinson's disease (PD) only slow disease progression. Early intervention for the neurological disease that worsens over time is therefore critical to optimize care, but that requires early diagnosis. ...

Neuroscience

How Parkinson's disease affects emotion recognition of voices

A new study in Neurodegenerative Diseases looks closely at how Parkinson's disease can affect something as everyday and essential as recognizing emotion in someone's voice. The research suggests that both the side of the ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Mouth and gut bacteria linked to brain changes in Parkinson's disease

Scientists have discovered a link between bacteria in the mouth and gut and the progression of cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease. Specific changes in these bacteria, known as the microbiome, have been associated with ...

Medications

Asthma drug could help to treat a rare neurological disorder

The asthma medication theophylline is a suitable drug for treating the rare neurological disorder ADCY5-related dyskinesia, according to a new study by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), which was published ...

Medical research

New insight into dying cells in Parkinson's disease

When a patient experiences the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, the disease has been developing for a long time, and the patient may have already lost half of a specific type of nerve cells in the brain.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Revealing the faces and voices of Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's is currently the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the United States—1 million people have it; 90,000 more are diagnosed every year. And it's working its way to No. 1. Yet few know Parkinson's ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Smartwatches may be key to development of new Parkinson's treatments

New research shows that commercially available smartphones and watches, like the Apple Watch, are able to capture key features of early, untreated Parkinson's disease. These technologies could provide researchers with more ...

Neuroscience

Potential 'game-changer' in diagnosing Parkinson's disease

A certain protein builds up in the brains of most Parkinson's patients, a study confirmed on Thursday using a new technique hailed as a potential "game-changer" that could point towards a way to test for the debilitating ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Berlin patients use ping-pong to ease Parkinson's pain

Luci Krippner's eyes never leave the little white ball as her arms loosen up. When she plays ping-pong like today in Berlin, she can forget for a while that she has Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Ovary removal when young could raise Parkinson's risk

Women who have both of their ovaries removed before age 43 have an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease or parkinsonism, according to a recent study.

Genetics

How misplaced DNA could influence disease risk

DNA is our body's instruction manual. It contains all the information that our cells need to make proteins and other molecules vital for our development, growth and survival.