Last update:

Parkinson's & Movement disorders news

Neuroscience

New evidence about dopamine delivery explains why current Parkinson's treatments succeed—and their limitations

A McGill-led study is challenging a popular theory about how dopamine drives movement, a discovery that could shift how scientists think about Parkinson's disease treatments.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

New ALS diagnostic blood test boasts 97% accuracy

ALS is a debilitating paralytic disease characterized as the death of upper and lower motor neurons. Fortunately, ALS is relatively rare, with an incidence rate of 1.6 per 100,000 adults, resulting in about 30,000 cases in ...

Neuroscience

Aging midbrain neurons face energy crisis linked to Parkinson's

Dopamine neurons in a part of the brain called the midbrain may, with aging, be increasingly susceptible to a vicious spiral of decline driven by fuel shortages, according to a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Early Parkinson's predictor found in daily step count

Oxford's Big Data Institute and Nuffield Department of Population Health report that daily step counts may help identify who will later be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, with lower activity patterns acting as an early ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

In-home sensor technology offers smarter care for ALS patients

Bill Janes is on a mission to improve life for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). As a licensed occupational therapist and researcher at the University of Missouri, he's seen firsthand how the disease can steal ...

Neuroscience

Brain markers could yield early clues into Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease affects more than 1.1 million people in the United States, progressively damaging the brain cells that control movement. By the time symptoms like tremors appear, patients have already lost around half ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Untreated sleep apnea raises risk of Parkinson's, study finds

New research reveals that people with untreated obstructive sleep apnea have a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease. However, they can significantly reduce the risk by improving the quality of their sleep by using ...

Neuroscience

Pause and rewind: How the brain keeps time to control action

Whether speaking or swinging a bat, precise and adaptable timing of movement is essential for everyday behavior. Although we do not have sensory organs like eyes or a nose to sense time, we can keep time and control the timing ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Evidence builds for disrupted mitochondria as cause of Parkinson's

For decades, scientists have known that mitochondria, which produce energy inside our cells, malfunction in Parkinson's disease. But a critical question remained: do the failing mitochondria cause Parkinson's, or do they ...

Alzheimer's disease & dementia

What polymers can teach us about curing Alzheimer's disease

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have applied ideas from polymer physics to illuminate the mechanism behind a key pathology in Alzheimer's disease, the formation of fibrils of tau proteins. They showed that ...

Genetics

New genetic test targets elusive cause of rare movement disorder

Scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School have developed a targeted genetic test to improve diagnosis for X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (XDP), a rare and disabling movement disorder that affects ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Worse QoL seen for Parkinson patients with depressed caregivers

For patients with Parkinson disease (PD), those whose caregivers have depression symptoms have worse quality of life (QOL) and higher emergency department use, according to a study published online Aug. 11 in JAMA Network ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Playing football may increase the risk for Parkinson's disease

Identification of risk factors for Parkinson's disease (PD) is essential for early diagnosis. Dating back to the 1920s, Parkinson's disease and parkinsonism—an umbrella term that refers to motor symptoms found in Parkinson's ...

Neuroscience

Sweet-spot brain stimulation may halt Parkinson's progression

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) neurologists and scientists, along with colleagues from Charité-Berlin University of Medicine, are reporting that the use of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in a very specific location ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Study raises possibility of immunotherapy treatment for ALS

New research reveals a type of monoclonal antibody already tested in certain forms of cancer may be a promising treatment in stopping the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a fatal neurodegenerative disease.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Using prebiotics to help treat Parkinson's disease

Constipation can be caused by many factors, not all of them serious. But it could be a sign of Parkinson's disease. A new study from RUSH neurologist Deborah Hall, MD, looks into how the bowel and the brain are linked.

Medical research

New therapeutic target for Parkinson's disease discovered

Northwestern Medicine scientists have uncovered a new mechanism by which mutations in a gene parkin contribute to familial forms of Parkinson's disease. The discovery opens a new avenue for Parkinson's therapeutics, scientists ...

Alzheimer's disease & dementia

New research shows Lewy body disease can be detected before symptoms

Lewy body disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease. A research group from Lund University has now shown that the disease can be detected before symptoms appear, using a spinal ...