The prodromes of Parkinson's

Following on nicely from our last post, we are delighted to publicise our latest peer-reviewed publication.

This will come out in a special edition of the European Journal of Neuroscience, dedicated to the memory of Tom Isaacs. Tom was the founder and leader of the Cure Parkinson's Trust - a truly dynamic leader and a real disruptive presence (in all the right ways) within  Parkinson's research. We are honoured to have our names and our ideas as testimonial to him in this way.

It is clear that Parkinson's is more of an umbrella condition than one single entity. For instance, some people have significant tremor, while others have none. Some progress very slowly, and a decade from diagnosis have barely any more symptoms - others progress more quickly. For many Parkinson's affects mainly movement while others have many non-motor symptoms. It is likely (although not yet proven) that these different subtypes of Parkinson's have a different underlying process causing them.

It therefore stands to reason that the earliest phases are also different. In our article we lay out the evidence that Parkinson's that comes from people with a particular kind of sleep disorder (REM sleep behavioural disorder), smell loss, and genetic forms do all look different. The evidence is not bomb-proof, but in Predict-PD we will be able to shed light on both the sleep disorder, smell loss and try and pick apart differences in the general population.

To see the article, please see the journal website. Please also remember to talk to friends and family to read more about the study and sign up themselves: www.predictpd.com

RNR