Parkinson's News Today

6 days ago | parkinsonsnewstoday.com | Margarida Maia

Nearly 1 in 8 people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in Finland within the past couple of decades were later given a different diagnosis, usually within two years, underscoring the need for better clinical criteria and regular checkups. When Parkinson’s and dementia with Lewy bodies, a neurodegenerative disease also marked by a buildup of toxic clumps of misfolded alpha-synuclein protein, were treated as separate diagnoses, the rates of misdiagnoses increased further.

6 days ago | parkinsonsnewstoday.com | Lindsey Shapiro

Scientists have developed a blood test to detect Parkinson’s disease in its very early stages, before a person experiences the first symptoms that would normally prompt a Parkinson’s diagnosis, a study showed. After identifying that people with Parkinson’s have alterations in two types of transfer RNA fragments (tRFs), molecules that play a variety of roles in cellular function, researchers developed a diagnostic test to measure the ratio between the molecules.

1 week ago | parkinsonsnewstoday.com | Margarida Maia |Patricia Inacio |Doc Irish |Andrea Lobo

The Van Andel Institute (VAI) — founded nearly three decades ago to advance biomedical research and science education — is awarding its 2025 Jay Van Andel Award to a University of Pittsburgh professor for his work on environmental factors in Parkinson’s disease. This year’s award will be presented to J. Timothy Greenamyre, MD, PhD, a neurologist and researcher who also serves as the director of the Pittsburgh Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases.

1 week ago | parkinsonsnewstoday.com | Margarida Maia |Marisa Wexler |Andrea Lobo

The investigational liquid therapy ND0612 — an around-the-clock supply of levodopa/carbidopa infused via a pump under the skin — provides more stable motor control in people with Parkinson’s disease who experience motor fluctuations than standard immediate-release levodopa/carbidopa. That’s according to data from the randomized portion of the Phase 3 BouNDless (NCT04006210) study and its ongoing open-label extension.

1 week ago | parkinsonsnewstoday.com | Margarida Maia |Andrea Lobo

ION859, an injectable treatment being developed by Ionis Pharmaceuticals, was generally safe and well tolerated, and it reduced the levels of LRRK2 — a protein often overactive in Parkinson’s disease — even in patients without mutations in the gene that encodes it.