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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

Parkinson's disease: Bad dreams could be an early warning sign

Every night when we go to sleep, we spend a couple of hours in a virtual world created by our brains in which we are the main protagonist of an unfolding story we did not consciously create. In other words, we dream.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Prospect of blood test for Parkinson's disease

A research team at the Faculty of Medicine at Kiel University has developed a method that reliably detects protein changes in blood that are typical of Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Boxing may ease Parkinson's symptoms

Researchers are looking to the boxing ring for new options in the fight against Parkinson's disease symptoms.

Medications

Clinical trial suggests Parkinson's drug is safe in humans

A large team of researchers from Denali Therapeutics, working with colleagues from multiple entities in the U.S. and one in Canada, has found that a LRRK2 inhibitor called DNL201 showed no ill effects to volunteers in a clinical ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Bad dreams could be early warning of Parkinson's disease

Older adults who start to experience bad dreams or nightmares could be exhibiting the earliest signs of Parkinson's disease, say researchers at the University of Birmingham.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

World-first: A biomarker that can diagnose Parkinson's disease

Researchers at Kobe University and Hiroshima University have successfully developed a biomarker that will enable Parkinson's disease to be rapidly and inexpensively diagnosed from blood serum samples.

Parkinson's & Movement disorders

Testing a one-time treatment to relieve Parkinson's symptoms

After decades of research into the causes and treatment of Parkinson's disease, UC Irvine Health neurologist Dr. Claire Henchcliffe is hopeful that a new cell therapy can finally bring meaningful relief to patients with the ...

Neuroscience

A new mutation behind synucleinopathies

Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia belong to a family of neurodegenerative disorders called synucleinopathies because they are caused by the pathological accumulation of protein alpha-synuclein into structures called ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Recognizing symptoms of Parkinson's disease

April is Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month, which makes this a good time to learn about the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.