News Articles
6/18/13 - In current health lore, antioxidants are all the rage, as "everybody knows" that reducing the amount of "reactive oxygen species" -- cell-damaging molecules that are byproducts of cellular metabolism -- is critical to staying healthy...
6/18/13 - A structure called "the microtubule network" is a crucial part of our nervous system. It acts as a transportation system within nerve cells, carrying essential proteins and enabling cell-to-cell communications. But in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, ALS, and Parkinson's, this network breaks down, hindering motor abilities and cognitive function. Now Prof...
6/17/13 - A new University of Florida study suggests a promising brain-imaging technique has the potential to improve diagnoses for the millions of people with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Utilizing the diffusion tensor imaging technique, as it is known, could allow clinicians to assess people earlier, leading to improved treatment interventions and therapies for patients...
6/13/13 - One of the biggest hurdles of hybrid positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance (PET/MR) imaging is the prevalence of motion artifacts - blurring and ghostly visual anomalies caused by patient motion on the table during imaging...
6/11/13 - "More than a third of Parkinson's patients suffer from dementia," Prof Dr Heinz Reichmann told more than 3,000 experts gathered at the 23rd Meeting of the European Neurological Society (ENS) in Barcelona to discuss the latest developments in the field...
6/11/13 - The presence of Lewy bodies in nerve cells, formed by intracellular deposits of the protein α-synuclein, is a characteristic pathologic feature of Parkinson's Disease (PD). In the quest for an animal model of PD that mimics motor and non-motor symptoms of human PD, scientists have developed strains of mice that overexpress α-synuclein...
6/10/13 - The surgeon who more than two decades ago pioneered deep brain stimulation surgery in the United States to treat people with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders has now developed a new way to perform the surgery - which allows for more accurate placement of the brain electrodes and likely is safer for patients...
6/7/13 - A cross-disciplinary collaboration of researchers in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) explores the neural synchrony between circuits in the brain and their behavior under simulated drug addiction. The two-year study could have broad implications for treating addiction and understanding brain function in conditions such as Parkinson's disease...
6/6/13 - Increased iron levels may be causally associated with a decreased risk of developing Parkinson's disease, says a new paper published this week in PLOS Medicine. Irene Pichler from EURAC in Italy and a group of international colleagues investigated whether there was any evidence of an association between serum iron levels and the risk of Parkinson's disease...
6/5/13 - Scientists have taken a vital step forward in understanding how cells from skin tissue can be reprogrammed to become stem cells. New research could pave the way to generate these stem cells efficiently to better understand and develop treatments for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and muscular degeneration...
6/4/13 - Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom have determined the crystal structure of Parkin, a protein found in cells that when mutated can lead to a hereditary form of Parkinson's disease...
5/31/13 - In some neurodegenerative diseases, and specifically in a devastating inherited condition called spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (SCA1), the answer may not be an "all-or-nothing," said a collaboration of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital and the University of Minnesota in a report that appea...
5/30/13 - For several years, the pharmaceutical industry has tried to develop drugs that target a specific neurotransmitter receptor in the brain, the NMDA receptor. This receptor is present on almost every neuron in the human brain and is involved in learning and memory...
5/28/13 - Two researchers in Italy suggest exposure to pesticides and solvents is linked to a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease. They came to this conclusion after analyzing over 100 studies from around the world. Parkinson's is a progressive degenerative disease that affects a person's ability to control and coordinate their muscle movement...
5/28/13 - In Parkinson's disease, the protein "alpha-synuclein" aggregates and accumulates within neurons. Specific areas of the brain become progressively affected as the disease develops and advances...
5/27/13 - Gaucher disease causes debilitating and sometimes fatal neurodegeneration in early childhood. Recent studies have uncovered a link between the mutations responsible for Gaucher disease and an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease later in life...
5/24/13 - Widely available in pharmacies and health stores, phosphatidylserine is a natural food supplement produced from beef, oysters, and soy. Proven to improve cognition and slow memory loss, it's a popular treatment for older people experiencing memory impairment. Now a team headed by Prof. Gil Ast and Dr...
5/22/13 - Researchers have pinpointed a catalytic trigger for the onset of Alzheimer's disease - when the fundamental structure of a protein molecule changes to cause a chain reaction that leads to the death of neurons in the brain...
5/22/13 - Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative neurological disorder marked by a progressive loss of motor control. Despite intensive research, there are currently no approved therapies that have been demonstrated to alter the progression of the disease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dr...
5/14/13 - Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have used tiny doses of a leukemia drug to halt accumulation of toxic proteins linked to Parkinson's disease in the brains of mice. This finding provides the basis to plan a clinical trial in humans to study the effects...
5/13/13 - Research opens door to new drug therapies for Parkinson's disease McGill University researchers have unlocked a new door to developing drugs to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease. Collaborating teams led by Dr. Edward A. Fon at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -The Neuro, and Dr...
5/12/13 - New research reveals that Solanaceae - a flowering plant family with some species producing foods that are edible sources of nicotine - may provide a protective effect against Parkinson's disease...
5/11/13 - Scientists say that a gene, called parkin, can delay the onset of aging and make fruit flies live longer. They believe their findings might have important implications for the aging process and development of disease in human beings. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)...
5/10/13 - A key type of human brain cell developed in the laboratory grows seamlessly when transplanted into the brains of mice, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered, raising hope that these cells might one day be used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and possibly even Alzheimer's disease, as well as complications of spinal cord injury such as chronic pain and spasticity...
5/9/13 - Certain species of a flowering plant family called "Solanaceae" have chemical properties that can help prevent the development of Parkinson's disease. Some of the species are edible sources of nicotine, a chemical which is thought to have a neuroprotective effect upon dopaminergic neurons, providing a protective effect against the disease...
