$1.3M NIH grant to fund Parkinson's disease study

Side effects of treatment to be focus

Research by Christopher Bishop, assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton University, will focus not only on the treatment of Parkinson's disease but also in the side effects of treatment. Click here for more information.

BINGHAMTON, NY -- A Binghamton University researcher will receive $1.33 million from the National Institutes of Health to support Parkinson's research that will focus not only on the treatment of the disease but also in the side effects of treatment.

"Parkinson's disease patients have trouble with movement," said Christopher Bishop, assistant professor of psychology. "They move more slowly. They have rigidity in their limbs. They have balance problems and tremors."

The cardinal symptoms are a result of a deficit of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that's essential for movement; it also plays an important role in behavior, cognition and sleep. In Parkinson's patients, neurons in the brain that make dopamine die. Scientists still aren't sure why; genetic factors are believed to play only a small role.

This deficit of dopamine can be reversed with treatment using a compound called L-DOPA, which has been the gold standard in Parkinson's treatment for about 50 years. The brain converts L-DOPA into dopamine, which is why it's an effective replacement therapy for patients. For five to 10 years, this treatment works well. "The problem," Bishop explained, "is that Parkinson's is a progressive disease. You lose more and more of these neurons as time goes on, so therapeutically, doses of L-DOPA must increase."