Tag Archives: Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease has an insidious onset and is diagnosed when typical motor features occur. Several motor and non-motor features can occur before diagnosis, early in the disease process.

This study aimed to assess the association between first presentation of several prediagnostic features in primary care and a subsequent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, and to chart the timeline of these first presentations before diagnosis.

8166 individuals with a first diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and 46755 people without Parkinson’s disease were identified from The Health Improvement Network UK primary care database.

A range of prediagnostic features such as tremor, balance impairment, constipation, depression were detected by the study several years before diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease in primary care. These data can be incorporated into ongoing efforts to identify individuals at the earliest stages of the disease for inclusion in future trials and to help understand progression in the earliest phase of Parkinson’s disease.

Source:  The Lancet

The personal genetics company 23andMe, Inc. has announced an agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, to generate whole genome sequencing data for approximately 3,000 people in 23andMe’s Parkinson’s disease community. The goal of the collaboration is to identify new therapeutic targets for treating Parkinson’s disease.

Source: 23andMe (Press Release)

Wearable devices that are being trialled by Parkinson’s UK to improve symptom management for sufferers have been granted an EU patent, signalling a green light for the devices to enter the European market in the near future.

The Global Kinetics Corporation’s (GCK) KinetiGraph device, worn on the wrist, records patients’ movements and medication to assess dosage levels and their effectiveness. Charity Parkinson’s UK announced in Autumn 2014 that it would trial the wearables on hundreds of patients over the next 12 months.

Source:  Techworld

Scientists studying two genes that are mutated in an early-onset form of Parkinson’s disease have deciphered how normal versions of these genes collaborate to help rid cells of damaged mitochondria.

Mitochondria are the cell’s primary energy source, and maintaining their health is critical for cellular function. Mitochondrial dysfunction may underlie multiple neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s.

In their analysis published in Molecular Cell, Harvard Medical School researchers used powerful quantitative mass spectrometry and live-cell imaging approaches to elucidate a multistep mechanism by which the two proteins mutated in Parkinson’s disease—PINK1 and PARKIN—mark mitochondria as damaged by attaching chains of a small protein called ubiquitin. This work paves the way for a deeper understanding of what molecular steps are defective when these proteins are mutated in patients with Parkinson’s disease.