| Parkinson's Disease (PD) affects approximately one in every 200 people, with a fifth of these contracting the disease under the age of 40. The disease is caused by the death and injury of brain cells (neurons) which produce a chemical (dopamine), known as a neuro-transmitter. Dopamine is used to facilitate transmission of signals from the brain to various parts of the body and, hence, what arises in PD patients is a severe and chronic movement disorder. There is no cure for PD and the principal pharmaceutical agent used to manage PD is referred to as Levodopa, which stimulates dopamine production in the brain. The value of Levodopa declines with disease progression, and the drug has numerous unpleasant side-effects. There are no simple and definitive diagnostics for PD, other than PET scans and autopsies. Simple clinical movement tests are used to subjectively assess the progression of the disease and the degree of immobility. In this Doctoral research program, undertaken by Shahriar Yousefi, the objective was to determine the effectiveness of studying the brain's response to sounds (specifically "clicks") - the auditory brainstem response (or ABR) and determining whether this correlated with disease mobility symptoms or medication usage. The results of the Doctoral research revolved on the analysis of acoustic signatures derived from PD patients, and showed that the ABR was indeed sensitive to the presence of PD and that the ABR did vary with medication levels. A subsequent Doctoral research program is being undertaken to develop a "wearable" ABR device to monitor PD patients over the course of a day, and see how effective the ABR can be in assessing the efficacy of medication regimes. Collaborators: Parkinson's Victoria Click here to read about our new research developing a wearable ABR device for PD Patients Click here to read the results of the initial PD Study Click here to read about the difficulties people with PD have in accessing services |
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| Auditory Brainstem Response of People with Parkinson's Disease |