Active clinical trials for "Parkinson Disease"

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether subthalamic deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) can affect moral and economic decisions in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Parkinson's disease is characterized in the advanced phases by an altered response to dopaminergic therapy for the occurrence of abnormal movements called dyskinesias, that worsens the quality of life of the patient and exposes him to comorbidities. Several data show a reduction in the amount of slow wave sleep that correlates inversely with disease duration. Since this stage of sleep is linked to mechanisms of deletion of superfluous information the investigators hypothesize that the onset of dyskinesias is related to such alteration of sleep. -This study is aimed to investigate, by means of high-density electroencephalography (hd-EEG), the sleep and in particular the slow wave in order to clarify the relations with the development of dyskinesias.

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Rotigotine and Levodopa combination therapy for younger and older patients with Parkinson's Disease under real life conditions. Effects on ability to perform activities of daily living, sleep, medication dose and other factors will be assessed.

Non-Ergot Dopamine agonists are meanwhile the drugs of first-choice in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. The receptor profile of the non-ergot dopamine-agonist piribedil is unique. In addition to agonistic effects on dopaminergic D2- and D3-receptors piribedil has adrenergic alpha-2A- and alpha-2C-receptors antagonisic properties. There is evidence from the literature that the antagonistic properties of piribedil are correlated with an improvement of cognitive function and vigilance parameters in parkinson's disease. The aim of the present non-interventional study is to investigate the safety and efficacy of piribedil during long-term therapy of patients with M. Parkinson under consideration of cognitive functions and quality of life.

Levodopa-induced dyskinesia severely limits the use of levodopa in Parkinson's disease and constitutes a debilitating complication of dopaminergic treatment in late stage. Among several neurobiological mechanisms identified so far, the investigators have established in experimental models the key role of D1 receptor hypersensitivity and a"Ras-ERK" signalling pathway. As the very same dopamine receptor machinery and the Ras-ERK pathway are present in blood lymphocytes, the investigators wish to test the hypothesis that the level of ERK phosphorylation in lymphocytes is a biomarker of levodopa-induced dyskinesia in Parkinson's Disease. The study will be performed in dyskinetic levodopa-treated patients and non-Parkinson's Disease controls. Blood sampling "off" and "on" levodopa treatment (1 hour post-dose), as well as clinical data collection will be done during a scheduled pre-op work-up (deep brain stimulation). Subsequently, suspended lymphocytes from blood samples will be immunolabelled using an anti-pERK antibody and mean fluorescence intensity and percent of labelled lymphocytes will be assessed by flow cytometry. Additionally, plasma and urine samples will be collected "on" et "off" for dosage of dopamine. The motor effect of levodopa will be assessed through UPRSIII rating scale and eye movement (saccades) speed by non-invasive oculometric recordings.

The purpose of this study is to document the long-term safety and tolerability after intracerebroventricular (ICV) administration of sNN0031 (PDGF-BB) in patients who participated in study sNN0031-001

Although deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus(STN DBS) has become the surgical treatment of choice for Parkinson's disease(PD), a consensus on the timing of surgery is lacking. This study is intended to demonstrate that early, compared with delayed, introduction of STN DBS is more beneficial for PD patients who have developed motor complications.

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a movement disorder causing either uncontrolled movement, slowness of movement, slowness of initiation of movement or rigidity of muscles. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is the FDA-approved method for patients who no longer get effective treatment from the best available medication. The location in the brain where the electrode is placed during DBS surgery for PD is called the Subthalamic Nucleus or STN. This study aims to investigate another location in the brain, the Substantia nigra pars reticulata or SNr. The SNr is also known to be involved in motor control of muscles and may be involved in the process by which the initiation of movement occurs.

In this study, the investigators will follow patients who have had stimulators implanted, at their usual clinic follow-up appointments 3, 6, 9 and 12 months after surgery. It is typical at these appointments for patients to be off medication and for the stimulators to be turned off to observe disease progress and test stimulator effectiveness. Also as part of standard clinical practice, stimulator settings are adjusted for optimal benefit to motor symptoms. Only patients who already have implants will be invited to participate in this study, and no changes to stimulator settings are made for the purposes of this study. Stimulator settings are changed based on clinical evaluation of motor symptoms, and this study has no bearing on how stimulators will be set nor how often they will be set.

Parkinson´s disease is based on a Lewy body degeneration of cerebral and extracerebral neurons. This Lewy body degeneration includes cerebral cholinergic neurons besides dopaminergic neurons. In previous studies the investigators found that some clinical parkinsonian symptoms - primarily hypokinesia and rigidity - significantly correlate with the dopaminergic nigrostriatal degeneration which was quantified by dopamine transporter imaging. In contrast to that, resting or postural parkinsonian tremor does not correlate with the dopaminergic nigrostriatal degeneration. Obviously further cerebral changes - for instance possible changes / degeneration of cerebral cholinergic neurons - contribute to parkinsonian tremor. In this study the investigators apply cerebral 5-IA-85380-SPECT to quantify the local density of cerebral nicotinergic cholinergic receptors in patients with Parkinson´s disease. The investigators will correlate the results of cerebral 5-IA-85380-SPECT with the clinical parkinsonian main symptoms hypokinesia, rigidity and primarily resting and postural tremor. In particular, it is of interest whether changes of cerebral cholinergic neurons are involved in the generation of parkinsonian tremor.