Parkinson's disease is a brain disorder. It occurs when certain nerve cells (neurons) in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra die or become impaired. When approximately 80 percent of neurons are damaged, the symptoms of Parkinson's disease appear. Parkinson's disease affects 1 in 100 people over the age of 60, with the average age of onset being 60 years. The risk of developing Parkinson's disease increases with age. In the United States, it is estimated that 60,000 new cases of Parkinson's disease are diagnosed each year, with 1.5 million Americans currently living with the disease.
Mutant mice are providing scientists with a new neurobiological framework to understand the brain changes observed in distractible humans who carry a common gene variant whose frequency has been associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Researchers from a USC-led consortium have discovered 15 "hotspots" in the genome that either speed up brain aging or slow it down -; a finding that could provide new drug targets to resist Alzheimer's disease and other degenerative brain disorders, as well as developmental delays.
A study published today in Nature Communications unveils a new platform for discovering cellular signatures of disease that integrates robotic systems for studying patient cells with artificial intelligence methods for image analysis.
Parkinson's disease may be driven in part by cell stress-related biochemical events that disrupt a key cellular cleanup system, leading to the spread of harmful protein aggregates in the brain, according to a new study from scientists at Scripps Research.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago found promising results in their search for a treatment to stop nerve cell degeneration that happens in some types of disorders, such as hereditary spastic paraplegia and Parkinson's disease, which can cause significant disability.
DNAzymes are precision biocatalysts that destroy unwanted RNA molecules. However, major obstacles to their use in medicine remain.
A grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation of up to 300 million euro now enables the establishment of a major international research center focused on stem cell medicine.
A common gene mutation for Parkinson's disease drives mislocalization of iron in activated microglia, according to a new study publishing December 16th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, by Mark Cookson of the National Institute on Aging and colleagues.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder, afflicting more than 10 million people worldwide and more than one million Americans. While there is no cure for PD, current therapies focus on treating motor symptoms and fail to reverse, or even address, the underlying neurological damage.
UT Southwestern stem cell scientists find that stringent lineage tracing is crucial for studies of nerve cell regeneration. Their results, which are published in Cell, show that this tracing is far from routine in the field and suggest that earlier studies reporting "striking" regeneration results must be reexamined.
After several decades of pre-clinical development, cell- and gene-based therapies for Parkinson's disease (PD) are now actively being explored. In this special supplement to the Journal of Parkinson's Disease on "Repairing the Parkinsonian Brain," experts highlight some of the current strategies being pursued to restore lost function and replace what is lost in the PD brain, with special emphasis on the challenges associated with translating advanced therapeutic approaches into pioneering clinical trials.
Gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors in adults. Among them, high-grade glioblastomas (GBMs) are particularly known to be notoriously aggressive and invasive, which makes it challenging to treat them.
Imagine working on your computer and typing the same long password you have used for years to access your email.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have added to evidence that a protein called CaMKII improves strength, endurance, muscle health and fitness in young animals.
Children with a devastating genetic disorder characterized by severe motor disability and developmental delay have experienced sometimes dramatic improvements in a gene therapy trial launched at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have devised a four-part small-molecule cocktail that can protect stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from stress and maintain normal stem cell structure and function.
Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder and melanoma is a type of skin cancer but on the surface, these disorders do not seem to have much in common.
Thousands of our daily activities, from making coffee to taking a walk to saying hello to a neighbor, are made possible through an ancient collection of brain structures tucked away near the center of the cranium.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering and Medical School have developed a unique head-mounted mini-microscope device that allows them to image complex brain functions of freely moving mice in real time over a period of more than 300 days.
In researching the causes and potential treatments for degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, neuroscientists frequently struggle to accurately identify cells needed to understand brain activity that gives rise to behavior changes such as declining memory or impaired balance and tremors.