Antibodies that selectively target the misfolded form of the alpha-synuclein protein that which underlies the development of Parkinsons disease reduced the formation of alpha-synuclein clumpsand improved dopamine levels in a mouse model. Continue reading →

Have you ever heard someone say that Parkinsons can be blamed for much and many a thing? I have. And why not blame our woes on this disease Continue reading →

A new method allows researchers to develop adeno-associated virus (AVV) commonly used as the vehicle for gene therapies that accurately target and deliver genes to specific cells in the body. This new technology may be suitable to target dopaminergic neurons that are damaged in Parkinsons disease Continue reading →

Aspen Neuroscience, a new biotech company, has raised $6.5 million to develop cell therapies for Parkinsons disease using patients own cells. The company was co-founded by renowned stem cell scientists Jeanne F. Loring, PhD, and Andres Bratt-Leal, PhD, and initially supported by Summit for Stem Cell, a non-profit organization that provides a variety of services for Parkinsons patients. Continue reading →

I was playing a nice, calm game of Hearts with my kids and grandkids when I started laughing. Again. My outburst was not out of the ordinary, unless somewhat irrepressible mirth counts as abnormal Continue reading →

Caregivers of patients with Parkinson disease (PD) experiencing symptom recurrence after a period of symptom control, known as OFF periods, reported that PD had a greater impact on their paid employment through variables such as loss of earnings, loss of opportunities, or ability to maintain employment compared with caregivers for patients without OFF periods. Research presented at AMCP Nexus 2019 in National Harbor, Maryland, sought to assess the financial burden of caregivers for patients with PD (PwP) who are in OFF periods. Another study presented at the conference found that 56.3% of PwP undergoing OFF periods cited symptom recurrence as a major reason to stop working, 25.4 percentage points more than PwP without OFF periods (30.9%). Continue reading →

Oliver Sacks continued to write until a few days before his death, and three volumes of his essays have been published posthumously. As a medical doctor and a writer, [Oliver] Sacks achieved a level of popular renown rare among scientists, wrote Gregory Cowles in the neurologists New York Times obituary Continue reading →