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UK Parkinson’s Disease Society Tissue Bank at Imperial College London
Telephone: 020 7594 9732 Fax: 020 7594 9733 E-mail: pdbank@imperial.ac.uk |
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Current Issue |
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| Tissue Bank newsletter | Winter 2008 | |
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| Back to page 1 | On to page 3 | |
| New International research into hallucinations and Parkinson's, thanks to the Tissue Bank | ||
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Dr Susan Fox is a UK trained movement disorder neurologist. She is working at the University of Toronto, Canada, in collaboration with Dr Antonio Strafella and Dr Jonathan Brotchie, at the Toronto Western Research Institute. The team is studying what causes some people with Parkinson’s to experience hallucinations and develop psychosis, with the aim of improving prevention and treatment. |
These results will help shed light on those from another study which is investigating changes in certain types of serotonin receptors in people with Parkinson’s with, and without, visual hallucinations. (This study is funded by the Parkinson Society Canada.) Early results in six people with Parkinson’s suggest that there may be changes in a brain area, the medial temporal lobe, which processes complex visual information in people with visual hallucinations (shown in red in the picture below).
(B Ballanger, AP Strafella, M Zurowski, GS Smith, P Rusjan, T van Eimeren, A Wilson, S Houle, S Fox (2008) Mov Disord; 23 (suppl 1);218) What’s been found so far? Early results have shown that there are changes in some serotonin receptors’ activities in the medial temporal lobe in people with Parkinson’s who have experienced visual hallucinations. The next step is to investigate which other brain areas are also involved. How will this research benefit people with Parkinson’s? If studies confirm these findings, then designing drugs that target specific serotonin receptor families could be useful in treating the distressing symptoms of psychosis and visual hallucinations in Parkinson’s. |
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What causes some people with Parkinson’s to have hallucinations? Many people with Parkinson’s are affected by disturbing visual hallucinations which can seem extremely real. Some people feel as though they are being chased or watched, and become paranoid as a result. Others can experience vivid nightmares. It’s unclear why some people with Parkinson’s suffer from hallucinations while others do not. They could be caused simply by changes in the brain, or by a combination of both the condition and the effects of anti-Parkinson’s medications, such as dopamine agonists and levodopa. The chemical messenger serotonin is involved in changes in mood, and may play a part in causing visual hallucinations. Other researchers have also found pathological changes in certain brain regions in people with Parkinson’s who experience visual hallucinations, indicating that specific brain regions may be affected. What the team is looking for? Using brain tissue supplied by the Tissue Bank, the researchers are measuring changes in different types of serotonin receptors (which bind with substances such as neurotransmitters), in those regions of the brain thought to be affected in people with Parkinson’s with visual hallucinations. Comparing these changes with tissues from people with Parkinson’s who didn’t hallucinate, and with healthy brains, should provide clues about why hallucinations happen, and targets for new treatments. |
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| Back to page 1 | On to page 3 | |
| Inside this issue: | |||
| New International Research | Case Study | A Day in the Life of a Technician | Meet the Team |
| Contact Details | |||
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