Parkinson's disease information

Disease Understanding Improved By 3D Microscopy The understanding of diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's is set to take a step forward following groundbreaking technology which will enable cell analysis using automated 3D microscopy...

Parkinson's Disease - How Much Exercise Improves Symptoms? For over two decades, Daniel Corcos has researched Parkinson's disease. During his studies he spent the majority of the past decade focusing on the effects of exercise. Corcos, a professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago, explained: "It became obvious several years ago that exercise really was good for people with Parkinson's disease...

Most Lethal Known Species Of Prion Protein Identified Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have identified a single prion protein that causes neuronal death similar to that seen in "mad cow" disease, but is at least 10 times more lethal than larger prion species...

Study Of Live Human Neurons Reveals The Genetic Origins Of Parkinson's Disease Parkinson's disease researchers at the University at Buffalo have discovered how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease, which afflicts at least 500,000 Americans and for which there is no cure. The results are published in the current issue of Nature Communications...

Tai Chi Program Offers Significant Gains In Balance, Stability Among Parkinson's Disease Patients An Oregon Research Institute (ORI) exercise study conducted in four Oregon cities has shown significant benefits for patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease. In an original article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), ORI scientist Fuzhong Li, Ph.D...

Tai Chi Helps Parkinson's Patients Mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease patients who practice Tai Chi were found to experience significant benefits, including better posture, fewer falls, and improved walking ability, researchers from the Oregon Research Institute (ORI) reported in NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine)...

Increased Understanding Of Gene's Potentially Protective Role In Parkinson's Treatments for Parkinson's disease, estimated to affect 1 million Americans, have yet to prove effective in slowing the progression of the debilitating disease...

Lab-Made Neurons Allow Scientists To Study A Genetic Cause Of Parkinson's By reverse engineering human skin cells to become induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and then coaxing them to become neural dopamine cells, scientists in the US have developed a way to study a genetic cause of Parkinson's disease in lab-made neurons...

Insight Into Cell Aging Likely Following Discovery Of Extremely Long-Lived Proteins One of the big mysteries in biology is why cells age. Now scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have discovered a weakness in a component of brain cells that may explain how the aging process occurs in the brain...

The Development Of Parkinson's Cells Visualized By Researchers In the US alone, at least 500,000 people suffer from Parkinson's disease, a neurological disorder that affects a person's ability to control his or her movement. New technology from the University of Bonn in Germany lets researchers observe the development of the brain cells responsible for the disease...

Prion-Like Protein Plays A Key Role In Storing Long-Term Memories Memories in our brains are maintained by connections between neurons called "synapses"...

New Standard For Vitamin D Testing To Ensure Accurate Test Results At a time of increasing concern about low vitamin D levels in the world's population and increased use of blood tests for the vitamin, scientists are reporting development of a much-needed reference material to assure that measurements of vitamin D levels are accurate. The report appears in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry...

Protein Identified That Contributes To Symptoms Of Parkinson's Disease Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes, an independent and nonprofit biomedical-research organization, have identified a protein that exacerbates symptoms of Parkinson's disease - a discovery that could one day lead to new treatments for people who suffer from this devastating neurodegenerative illness...

First Step In Strategy For Cell Replacement Therapy In Parkinson's Disease Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are a promising avenue for cell replacement therapy in neurologic diseases. For example, mouse and human iPSCs have been used to generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons that improve symptoms in rat Parkinson's disease models...

Inability To Express Emotion May Be An Early Symptom Of Parkinson's Disease Alexithymia, a person's state of deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing emotions, has been strongly linked to depression in both clinical and general populations, and even though symptoms of alexithymia and depression can be partially overlapping, they are not all related to depressive symptoms and therefore highlight the relative independence of the two disorders...

How Alpha-Synuclein Interacts With Cell Membranes In Parkinson's Disease The accumulation of α-synuclein, a small, negatively charged protein, in neural cells, is one of the hallmarks of Parkinson's disease. It has been suggested that oligomeric α-synuclein causes membranes to become permeable, or to form channels on the outer cell membrane...

Solving The Parkinson's Conundrum: Biologists A Step Closer Research by a team in the University's Department of Biology found evidence that movement disorders, including tremor and slowness of movement (bradykinesia), associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) may be due to a defect in energy production in the nervous system. The advance may help to identify young adults who may be susceptible to the disease...

Researchers Identify Path To Treat Parkinson's Disease At Its Inception Imagine if doctors could spot Parkinson's disease at its inception and treat the protein that triggers it before the disease can sicken the patient...

Cell 'Battery' Found To Play Central Role In Neurodegenerative Disease A devastating neurodegenerative disease that first appears in toddlers just as they are beginning to walk has been traced to defects in mitochondria, the 'batteries' or energy-producing power plants of cells...

How A Motor Protein 'Steps Out' Just like people, some proteins have characteristic ways of "walking," which (also like human gaits) are not so easy to describe...

Iron Intake In Teen Years Can Impact Brain In Later Life Iron is a popular topic in health news. Doctors prescribe it for medical reasons, and it's available over the counter as a dietary supplement. And while it's known that too little iron can result in cognitive problems, it's also known that too much promotes neurodegenerative diseases...

"ORMOSIL" Nanoparticles Hold Promise As A Potential Vehicle For Drug Delivery In the images of fruit flies, clusters of neurons are all lit up, forming a brightly glowing network of highways within the brain. It's exactly what University at Buffalo researcher Shermali Gunawardena was hoping to see: It meant that ORMOSIL, a novel class of nanoparticles, had successfully penetrated the insects' brains...

Lewy Bodies Not Found To Be The Primary Cause Of Cell Death In Parkinson's Disease The pathology of Parkinson's disease is characterized by a loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra (SN), an area of the brain associated with motor control, along with the development of α-synuclein (αS) protein in the form of Lewy bodies (LB) in the neurons that survive...

Studies Identify Promising Genes And Small Molecules To Use Against Devastating Diseases Two related studies from Northwestern University offer new strategies for tackling the challenges of preventing and treating diseases of protein folding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer, cystic fibrosis and type 2 diabetes. To do its job properly within the cell, a protein first must fold itself into the proper shape...