MDS Podcast

Sara Schaefer discusses the history, inner workings, and vision of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society with current MDS President Francisco Cardoso.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has long been considered a risky procedure for people with Parkinson's disease and cognitive impairment. In this interview, Dr. Miocinovic presents real-world data, showing that DBS might be safe and useful in carefully selected patients with moderate cognitive impairment. Read the article.

In this History of Movement Disorders Special Episode, Prof. Tiago Outeiro interviews Prof. Maria Grazia Spillantini about integral work involved in discovering the role alpha-synuclein plays in the development of Lewy bodies. She discusses where the field is now and what questions young researchers should start asking.

In this special Hot Topics episode, Dr. Filip Scheperjans discusses what we know and what we don't yet know about the gut microbiome in Parkinson's disease, theories of influencing pathways within the gut-brain axis, and future directions for exploring and altering the gut microbiome in this patient population to impact disease.

Sara Schaefer discusses with Dr. Eduardo de Pablo-Fernandez his recent paper in Movement Disorders providing retrospective pathological validation of the 2022 MDS MSA Criteria using specimens from the Queens Square Brain Bank. Read the article.

Dr. Vrustangkumar Shah evaluated gait in Parkinson's disease patients in the lab and in real life using wearable sensors. Some measures can discriminate fallers from non-fallers in PD. The podcast discusses studying patients in different scenarios, the use of wearable sensors in PD, the results of a study on gait, and next steps for translating the research into clinical practice.

Two clinical trials with antibodies targeting alpha synuclein in early Parkinson's disease have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Anthony Lang and Gennaro Pagano, the first authors of the articles share the results and discuss the possible future perspectives with the MDS Podcast editor, Michele Matarazzo. Read the prasinezumab article. Read the cinpanemab article.

In part 5 of the Dystonia Special Series, Dr. Francesca Morgante interviews Dr. Jill Ostrem about current and future approaches to treatment of dystonia.

In part 4 of the Dystonia Special Series, Dr. Francesca Morgante interviews Dr. Anna Sadnicka on the neural roots of dystonia.

Dr. Matarazzo interviews Émeline Courtois about the recently published article on machine learning approach to discover marketed drugs that could have an impact on the development of Parkinson's disease. Interestingly, furosemide and adrenergic drugs showed a potential protective effect in this very large cohort. Journal CME is available until January 19, 2024 Read the article.