World Parkinson’s day - “Not just motor symptoms”

Back row (L-R): Pakeeran Siriratnam, Kelly Bertram (Head), James

Strathdee, Melissa Tang. Front row (L-R): Mia Wu, Sue Varley

Monday 11 April was World Parkinson’s Day. This day is held annually to shine a spotlight on the lived experience of people with Parkinson’s Disease and their families to raise public awareness globally and also push forward future research to prevent and cure the disease.

Movement disorders clinicians and researchers in the Department of Neuroscience, Central Clinical School and Department of Neurology, Alfred Health participated in the day by wearing purple in their clinic and performing the hand gesture used for assessing one of the signs in Parkinson’s Disease.

Vote for Ben Sinclair in the Famelab competition, by Sat 25 Apr 4 pm!

Dr Ben Sinclair explains in his Famelab entry video how the Reviver 
challenges people's balance and works their brains in the process.
Vote for your favourite here:  www.fwam.com.au/victoria-semi-final/

Dr Ben Sinclair (Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Neuroscience iBRAIN unit) has been successful in reaching the FameLab* Victorian semi-finals - well done and congratulations Ben!

Ben is one of 13 semi-finalists together with two other researchers from Monash University. He is using a rehabilitation machine, called a Reviver, for people with impairments in their balance and mobility. The Reviver uses gravity and reflex muscle contractions to give people a strong workout, even those who can’t walk or move.

Voting is open for the public now. If you like Ben's the best, please vote and help him get to the National Finals. Share presentations on Twitter with hashtag #FameLabAus.

Motion machine could improve Parkinson’s symptoms

Progressive supranuclear palsy sufferer, Leanore Aro, working her

balance in the Reviver machine with Dr Ben Sinclair supervising. 

Photo: Kate McPherson

• Clinical trial assesses Parkinson’s benefits from motion machine
• Australian invention tilts users off-balance to activate muscle groups 

Monash University and The Alfred are testing an innovative new machine that could improve the symptoms of people with Parkinson’s Disease using gravity and movement.

The Reviver machine intentionally challenges participants’ sense of balance in a safe and controlled environment. The reaction to being tilted off balance creates a powerful and innate response that can activate muscle groups that have become disengaged.

Participants sought: Balance development for Parkinson's patients using a Reviver

Dr Ben Sinclair supervising a participant

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) involves a range of motor deficits which can be treated with physical activity. The Reviver is an Australian-developed vestibular-stimulation, isometric-exercise machine which allows impaired individuals to perform isometric exercise far beyond their unassisted capacity.

We aim to test whether an intervention using the Reviver can improve the symptoms of PD, and to discern the physiological and neural underpinnings of any such improvement.

Contact Dr Ben Sinclair:
Email ben.sinclair@monash.edu, ph 02 95242188, Web www.monash.edu/medicine/ccs/neuroscience/research/law-group/ben-sinclair

Promising technology heads to Melbourne for Parkinson's Disease trial

The Reviver in action

Technology being brought to Melbourne as part of a trial by Neuroscience researcher Dr Ben Sinclair made the Sydney news recently. The Reviver is a device that tilts people and rotates them through the gravitational field, strengthening muscles with minimal conscious effort. In people with neuromuscular degenerative conditions like Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's Disease, it stimulates remaining reflex pathways, providing better muscle tone and balance.

The rubber hand illusion and deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease

Professor Dominic Thyagarajan

Professor Dominic Thyagarajan heads a group investigating movement disorders in the newly launched Department of Neuroscience. Here, he writes of a study published 14 September 2018 in Nature’s Scientific Reports that enlisted the intriguing Rubber Hand Illusion technique and deep brain stimulation to investigate impaired motor function in Parkinson’s disease.

Ancient gene involved in spina bifida also plays a role in motor coordination and anxiety

A/Prof Stephen Ting

by Anne Crawford

Curiosity and a compelling hypothesis prompted clinician and haematology researcher, Associate Professor Stephen Ting, to revisit the subject matter of his PhD a decade later. The findings of his recent study into the transcription factors of an ancient gene family known as the Grainyhead-like (Grhl) genes have revealed more than he expected and may have implications for future neuroscientific research.

Serotonergic markers in Parkinson's disease and levodopa-induced dyskinesias

Video of Prof Elsdon Storey describing his centre's research
including Parkinson's Disorder

Effective treatment for Parkinson's Disorder (PD) patients remains elusive. While Levadopa (l-dopa) is the most widely used antiparkinsonian medication, it also can induce dyskinesias, or movement disorders. This is the largest ever study to examine pathological changes in a post-mortem PD cohort specifically separated according their dyskinetic phenotype, thereby allowing a direct correlation of biochemical markers with l-dopa–induced dyskinesias (LID) incidence and severity. 

Reference: Cheshire P, Ayton S, Bertram KL, Ling H, Li A, McLean C, Halliday GM, O'Sullivan SS, Revesz T, Finkelstein DL, Storey E, Williams DR. Serotonergic markers in Parkinson's disease and levodopa-induced dyskinesias. Mov Disord. 2015 May;30(6):796-804. doi: 10.1002/mds.26144

Using TMS as a diagnostic tool for parkinsonian syndromes

Dr Kelly Bertram, a consulting neurologist
at the Alfred's Movement Disorders clinic,
demonstrates the use of the TMS device.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is being employed in a research study for early detection and measurement of neurodegenerative disorders including Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), Parkinson's Disease (PD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA).

Dr Kelly Bertram (pictured) and Dr Sarah Hewer have designed this study in collaboration with the Movement Disorder team at University of Rome. There is evidence neuronal dysfunction in PSP can be measured utilizing TMS. Given different parkinsonian syndromes are associated with different patterns of brain region involvement, diagnostic accuracy may be improved by the use of TMS. 

The study aims to measure responses to TMS paradigms in patients with PSP and compare these responses to patients with two other forms of parkinsonism, Multiple system atrophy and Parkinson’s disease, and with healthy controls. This will determine if TMS can distinguish between these diagnostic entities. Secondly, they hope to see if these responses correlate with clinical features of disease and change over time with disease progression. Dr Bertram said, "This will allow us to determine if TMS will be useful in future treatment trials."

See more about the Van Cleef/Roet Centre for Nervous Diseases research programs.

Study looks at small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in patients with Parkinson's disease

Source: shakeitup.org

CCS researchers conducted a study this year which looked at small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in Parkinson's disease, and a possible association with gastrointestinal symptoms and worse motor function.

Perdita Cheshire: her PhD research is puzzling out Parkinson's Disease

Perdita is a Research Assistant in the Burns Unit at the Alfred Hospital, and she has just completed her PhD in the Van Cleef Roet Centre for Nervous Diseases on Parkinson's Disease and how patients react with some of the treatments for the disease. Her supervisors were Associate Professor David Williams and Professor Elsdon Storey. To read more about Perdita go to: http://www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/education/profiles/cheshire.html