Projects

• Functional Consequences of Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease

Significant scientific advances in the past year:
The study findings from this past year will result in the development of a feasible, reliable and valid rating scale that measures the functional consequences of cognitive impairment PD. This instrument will be suitable for use in clinical trials of interventions designed to treat the cognitive impairments in PD, and will lead to a better understanding of the functional consequences of PD.

• Executive Difficulty in Parkinson’s Disease with Dementia

Significant scientific advances in the past year:
The results from the past year emphasize the specific cognitive and language deficits of patients with DLB/PDD, illustrate differences in the quality of the cognitive impairment in DLB compared to PDD, and provide important information concerning the role of executive disorders in language and communication.

• Animal Models of Parkinson’s Disease

Significant scientific advances in the past year:
The studies from the past funding year advanced our understanding of mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative synucleinopathies. Significantly, the ongoing studies support the alpha-synuclein “transmission” hypothesis and we have established non-neuronal as well as neuronal cell-based assays and mouse models of transmission for the identification of potential therapies for PD.

• Interactions of Protein Aggregation in Parkinson’s Disease with Dementia

Significant scientific advances in the past year:
We expect that findings from this past funding year will provide important insights into the mechanisms and the pathological significance of the interactions of three distinct amyloidogenic proteins (alpha-synuclein, tau and Ab peptide) that are involved in PD, PDD and related diseases. These findings may further define pathways of aberrant brain protein aggregation that culminate in neuronal damage. Importantly, these findings may provide an even more compelling rationale for pursuing efforts to identify therapeutic agents that could directly or indirectly inhibit the formation of amyloid in brain.