primary motor cortex tagged posts

The fMRI activity of a person with Parkinson’s disease is shown at baseline and one year later. The areas of high activity (orange) become areas of low activity (blue) in the second scan, showing progressive deterioration. Credit: Courtesy of David Vaillancourt

A new, non-invasive way to track the progression of Parkinson’s disease could help evaluate experimental treatments to slow or stop the disease’s progression. University of Florida researchers used fMRI to reveal areas where Parkinson’s disease and related conditions cause progressive decline in brain activity. While current treatments focus on controlling symptoms, biomarkers provide a quantifiable way to measure how medications address not just symptoms, but the neurological changes behind them.

Previous studies have used imagin...