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Parkinson's & Movement disorders news

Neuroscience

Tailored deep brain stimulation improves walking in Parkinson's disease

For patients with Parkinson's disease, changes in their ability to walk can be dramatic. "Parkinson's gait," as it is often called, can include changes in step length and asymmetry between legs. This gait dysfunction reduces ...

Alzheimer's disease & dementia

A shared five biomarker profile across four major neurodegenerative diseases

The Global Neurodegeneration Proteomics Consortium (GNPC) has published a series of research papers detailing their efforts to identify patterns in neurodegenerative disease. Sifting through roughly 250 million plasma measurements, ...

Alzheimer's disease & dementia

Blood plasma reveals shared pathways in neurodegenerative diseases

Scientists know that many proteins and pathways are involved in the development and progression of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and that ...

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 ...

Genetics

Gene therapy boosts Parkinson's disease drug benefits

In late-stage Parkinson's disease, the drug levodopa becomes less effective in treating symptoms because of the inexorable loss of dopamine-releasing neurons. But a new Northwestern Medicine preclinical study shows a gene ...

Neuroscience

Study: Death rate from Parkinson's rising in US

A new study shows that in the last two decades the death rate from Parkinson's disease has risen about 63% in the United States. The research is published in the October 27, 2021, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal ...

Neuroscience

Research shows promising results for Parkinson's disease treatment

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have found a way to make deep brain stimulation (DBS) more precise, resulting in therapeutic effects that outlast what is currently available. The work, led by Aryn Gittis and colleagues ...

Neuroscience

Neuroscientists map major circuit in the mouse brain

A UCLA study using mice reveals new insights into the wiring of a major circuit in the brain that is attacked by Parkinson's and Huntington's disease. The findings could hone scientists' understanding of how these disorders ...

Neuroscience

Immune cells in the brain share the work

To break down toxic proteins more quickly, immune cells in the brain can join together to form networks when needed. This is shown by a joint study of the University of Bonn, the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

People with Parkinson's may benefit from 7 walking strategies

Various strategies can help people with Parkinson's who have difficulty walking, but a new study finds that many people have never heard of or tried these strategies. The research is published in the September 8, 2021, online ...

Alzheimer's disease & dementia

New information on the early stages of dementia with Lewy bodies

Results obtained in a study recently completed at the University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital reinforce the notion that dementia with Lewy bodies can be pathologically classified into two different disease ...

Medical research

Identification of bacterial proteins that promote neurodegeneration

Growing evidence indicates that gut microbiota plays a critical role in regulating the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the molecular mechanism underlying ...