Parkinson's Disease Clinical Trials in Dallas, TX

The goals of this study are: 1) to identify biomarkers using neuroimaging that are associated with progression rate using statistical methods, and 2) to identify biomarkers that are associated with the differential diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and atypical parkinsonism. Read Less

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder involving a part of the brain that is responsible for motor control, which not only results in changes or disruptions in movement, but also cognitive dysfunctions. Given that the decline of muscle control such as tremors, with difficulty walking or the ability to switch tasks once in movement, greatly affects the quality of daily life. Action regulation is a critical executive function (cognitive control over behavior), which includes actions such as suppressing activity when selecting between options, making decisions about stopping unwanted or inappropriate actions, and switching to new actions in response to environmental changes. Parkinson's disease (PD) has been shown to disrupt action inhibition which can be considered a measure to the progression of PD. The purpose of this research study is to better understand the mechanism of action regulations in PD patients and how action regulations in PD can be improved using dopaminergic treatment, which is a drug that either releases or involves dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter involved in sending signals to nerve cells. You are asked to participate in this research study because you are receiving a dopaminergic medication for treatment of your Parkinson's disease. There is currently no theory that integrates the mechanisms of action regulation into a unified framework, which this study aims to address. The researchers hope to learn more about the mechanisms of action regulation in PD patients and to help decrease action regulation disruptions in PD patients. This study will help characterize the motor behavior of PD patients. Read Less

This is a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, fixed-dose study in patients with a diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease consistent with the UK Parkinson's Disease Society (UKPDS) Brain Bank diagnostic criteria, who are experiencing wearing off symptoms and levodopa-induced dyskinesia. Read Less

The brain networks controlling movement are complex, involving multiple areas of the brain. Some neurological disorders, like Parkinson's disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET), cause abnormalities in these brain networks. Deep brain stimulation is a treatment that is used to treat these types of neurological diseases and is thought to help patients by modulating brain networks responsible for movement. Levodopa medication is also used to modulate this brain networks in patients with PD. The overall objective is to develop a unified theory of basal ganglia thalamocortical (BGTC) circuit dynamics that accounts for disease symptomatology, movement, and their inter-relationship. The underlying hypothesis, is that the rigidity and bradykinesia of PD are fundamentally related to excessive functional coupling across nodes in the BGTC motor circuit impeding effective information flow. In this research, the investigator will take advantage of the unique opportunity provided by awake deep brain stimulation surgery to learn more about how the brain functions in a diseased state and how deep brain stimulation changes these networks to make movement more normal. The investigator will simultaneously assess cortical and subcortical electrophysiology in relation to clinical symptoms and behavioral measures and in response to deep brain stimulation, cortical stimulation, and pharmacologic therapy in patients undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) implantation surgery. Read Less

This registry is a prospective, multicenter, international, single arm, observational post-approval registry with follow-up at 3, 6, and 12 months, and annually for 5 years. The proposed registry will enroll 60 subjects and will be conducted at approximately 10 centers worldwide. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to examine the safety and efficacy of postural training emphasized on the integration of multiple sensory information into motor control in individuals with PD. This project is a proof-of-concept study to assess the effectiveness of postural training using Segway, which serves a platform to provide augmented and continuous proprioceptive and visuospatial information during postural training. Read Less