Active clinical trials for "Parkinson Disease"

This study mainly aims to prospectively evaluate the changes of reactive astrogliosis in Parkinsonism patients of Chinese population by the novel 18F-labeled MAO-B PET tracer.

Current research and theories have highlighted that the parameters linked to movement planning, e.g. the decision to select a movement goal, and adaptation, e.g. the ability to update control dependent on a novel dynamical context, are update quickly and within an ongoing movement in the general population. In parallel, it has been suggested that the evaluation of movement costs is a function of the basal ganglia, and it is impaired in Parkinson disease (PD). Here the investigators want to test whether these mechanisms also alter the ability of patients to update control during an ongoing action. A positive result would confirm that movement-related costs and dynamical representations depend on the integrity of the basal ganglia, in contrast a negative result would indicate that the deficit in PD is more specifically related to movement initiation, which would invite one to reconsider the cause of bradykinesia in this population.

Previous work has shown that a statistical property of gait characterised by long-range autocorrelation functions is altered in Parkinson disease (PD). On the other hand it has been suggested that the same property is linked to the ability in healthy humans to co-regulate the amplitude and cadence of strides towards maintaining a constant speed. Here the investigators want to better understand why it is altered in PD by measuring the transitions between gait instructed by a metronome, and gait without metronome. The experimental conditions will allow the comparisons between these transitions across PD and healthy groups of volunteers, and assess differences based on statistical and computational modelling. The link with potential freezing episodes will also be studied to assess whether the statistical determinants of gait control in this population can be used as a proxy or predictor of the occurence of freezing episodes.

The goal of the Speech Accessibility Project at the UIUC Beckman Institute (https://speechaccessibilityproject.beckman.illinois.edu) is to collect, annotate, and curate a shared database of speech samples from people with atypical speech, and share this data set with researchers at other organizations. This two-year project plans to collect 1,200,000 speech samples from 2,000 people, each of whom will provide 600 samples. In Year 1, the initial focus will be people with Parkinson's. In Year 2, four more etiologies of interest will be recruited: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Cerebral Palsy (CP), Down Syndrome (DS), and Stroke. UIUC will build an open-source software infrastructure to collect annotated speech samples and share these data in an appropriately secure fashion with researchers from our partner technology companies (and eventually, other organizations as well) so that they can use these data to improve their automatic speech recognition algorithms. This project promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by helping technology companies to fully support all types of speech, and it is also more efficient and less burdensome for these specialized patient populations to have one centralized "collector" of speech samples.

The object of this study is to longitudinally collect clinical outcomes of patients receiving deep brain stimulation for movement disorders with the objective of making retrospective comparisons and tracking of risks, benefits, and complications.

Background: The autonomic nervous system controls automatic body functions. Researchers want to improve the tests used to diagnose autonomic failure. Orthostatic hypertension is a drop in blood pressure when a person stands up. Researchers want to focus on this sign of autonomic failure. Objective: To improve testing for conditions that cause autonomic nervous system failure. Eligibility: People ages 18 and older in one of these categories: Their blood pressure drops when they get up. They have had a heart transplant or bilateral endoscopic thoracic sympathectomies or have had or will have renal sympathetic ablation Design: All participants will be screened with: Medical history Physical exam Blood and urine tests Some participants will be screened with: Heart and breathing tests IV placement into an arm vein Tilt table testing: Participants lie on a table that tilts while an IV is used to draw their blood. Participants may stay in the hospital for up to 1 week depending on their tests. Tests may include repeats of screening tests and: Sweat testing: A drug is placed on the skin to cause sweating. Sensors on the skin measure moisture. Lumbar puncture: A needle is inserted between the bones in the back to collect fluid. MRI and PET/CT scan: Participants lie on a table that slides into a scanner. For the PET/CT, a small amount of a radioactive chemical will be injected with a small amount of a radioactive chemical. Bladder catheter placement to collect urine Skin biopsies: A punch tool removes a small skin sample. Tests to see how the pupils react to light Smelling tests Thinking and memory tests Questionnaires Participants may have a visit about 2 years later to repeat tests.

The investigators are investigating the brain activity associated with sensory information in movement disorders in order to improve treatment of these symptoms beyond what is currently available.

The investigators plan to examine the relation of perceptual variables-basic vision, unusual perceptual experiences(including but not limited to visual hallucinations)-to relevant functional variables such as cognition, mood, and alertness/sleepiness in an online sample of persons with Parkinson's disease (PwPD). It is hypothesized that unusual perceptual experiences will relate significantly to the selected variables. Participants do not need to experience visual hallucinations to be able to participate in this study. This is an observational study only, and not an interventional study.

Balance problems and falls are common in people with Parkinson's disease but respond poorly to dopamine stimulating medications suggesting other causes. The main goal of this study is to assess whether imbalance and gait problems in people with Parkinson's disease may be related to vestibular (inner ear balance center) changes not related to loss of dopamine in the brain.

Ultrasound can give important information about the morphology of the diaphragm and the amount of contraction. Our aim, with the prediction that a restrictive pathology will occur in the pulmonary function with the addition of camptocormia in Parkinson's patients; to compare respiratory functions in Parkinson's patients with and without camptocormia, to investigate the correlation between ultrasonographically measured diaphragmatic thickness and pulmonary function test values.