The largest study ever conducted on light therapy for Parkinson’s disease has found that long-term use of Symbyx Biome Pty Ltd.’s non-invasive, at-home photobiomodulation (PBM) devices significantly improved mobility, anxiety, and overall symptom severity.
Inhibiting human monoamine oxidase (MAO)-B to increase the availability of monoamine neurotransmitters is a clinically approved strategy for treating Parkinson’s disease, yet available inhibitors lack efficacy or increase risk of adverse events. Researchers at Hefei University of Technology and collaborators started from the clinically improved MAO-B inhibitor safinamide and generated various derivatives, among which [I] and [II] emerged as the most promising.
Researchers at Shanghai Jingxin Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and Zhejiang Jingxin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. have divulged compounds acting as leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2; dardarin) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
Inhibiting histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) has therapeutic potential against several neurodegenerative disorders. A collaboration including researchers from Eikonizo Therapeutics Inc., spanning the U.K., U.S. and France, developed EKZ-438, which has shown strong potential against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia in preclinical studies.
Who knew? In addition to adopting a new name, Kneu Health Ltd. recently raised $5.6 million in a seed funding round for its smart-phone-based platform which helps to monitor neurological disorders to enable timely intervention. The funds secured will be used to expand commercial operations in the U.S., scale deployments for Parkinson's disease and advance the monitoring capabilities of the platform for dementia.
Lysosomal homeostasis is crucial to the metabolism of certain proteins and lipids that would otherwise accumulate, thus leading to cellular stress and pathology. This is common in diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and Gaucher disease. Researchers set out to find a brain-penetrant small-molecule agonist of the lysosomal channel TRPML1, also known as mucolipin-1.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive disease characterized by loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, which lead to motor symptoms. Aromatic-L-amino-acid decarboxylase (AADC) converts levodopa into dopamine and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) promotes the survival, growth and regeneration of dopaminergic neurons. VGN-R09b is an adeno-associated viral vector (AAV)-based AADC and GDNF combination gene therapy that is delivered to the striatum for the treatment of PD.
Oligomeric forms of α-synuclein are increasingly recognized as the primary neurotoxic species in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other synucleinopathies, contributing to synaptic dysfunction, mitochondrial impairment and the prion-like propagation of pathology. Targeting these early aggregates represents a promising strategy for disease modification.
Cala Health Inc.’s KIQ wearable device delivers transcutaneous afferent patterned stimulation through nerves at the wrist that modulate neural activity in the brain and reduces hand tremors in individuals with essential tremor, two recent studies show.
