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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

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.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Physical exercise helps to improve symptoms of Parkinson's disease

Physical exercise can help to improve the severity of movement-related symptoms and the quality of life in people with Parkinson's disease. Findings from the first Cochrane review of the available evidence has found that ...

Medical research

Common dry cleaning chemical linked to Parkinson's

A common and widely used chemical may be fueling the rise of the world's fastest growing brain condition—Parkinson's disease. For the past 100 years, trichloroethylene (TCE) has been used to decaffeinate coffee, degrease ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

A wide-gripped pen with magnets designed for Parkinson's patients

When Izzy Mokotoff's grandfather stopped writing his weekly letters to her in the spring of 2022, she knew she had to find a solution. Parkinson's disease had slowly been wearing down her grandfather's central nervous system, ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

New study details inflammation in early stages of Parkinson's disease

New research by investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham supports the premise that inflammation is associated with Parkinson's disease early in the disease's progression. The findings, published online in ...

Neuroscience

Movement shown to reduce sensory responses in Parkinson's disease

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been looking at how movement shapes our senses and how sensory and motor processes are both affected in Parkinson's disease. In a study published in Nature Communications, de la Torre-Martinez ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Using stool samples as an indicator of early form of Parkinson's

Isolated REM-sleep behavior disorder is a condition that can provide an indication of Parkinson's disease well in advance. A research team headed by Professor Dr. Erdem Gültekin Tamgüney from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf ...