Monthly Research Review – April 2026

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At the end of each month, the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major or interesting pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during April 2026.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

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So, what happened during April 2026?

In world news:

1st April – The basketball world was still recovering from the Duke vs UConn March Madness Elite Eight game: (coach Hurley’s response was a hilarious roller coaster of emotion (starting from 23 to 50 seconds in the video below) and his parents in the audience are probably still recovering (from 1.55 to 2.08 minutes – no lip-synching required!)):

 

6th April – The crew of Artemis II breaks the record for the furthest humans have ever been from Earth, reaching a maximum distance of 252,757 miles (406,773 km) as they travel around the far side of the Moon (Click here to read more about this).

 

7th April  – Traders placed bets worth around $950 million just hours ahead of the U.S. and ​Iran announced a ​two-week ceasefire (Click here to read more about this). And 10 days later (17th April) Deja vu: Traders placed bets worth about $760 million on a falling oil price just 20 minutes before U.S. and ​Iran announced on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz was open – well,… at least someone is winning…. right??? I wonder if they are getting tired of all that winning? (Click here to read more about this).

 

22nd April – During a Senate Finance Committee hearing, the US Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, said “President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. There’s two ways of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction” (Click here to read more about this). Six days later, Nature published an interesting news post on how the US Government has terminated more than 100 advisory committees to science agencies – 77 of them in the National Institutes of Health (Click here to read that piece)..

 

28th April – Japan Airlines announced that they will introduce humanoid robots to become baggage handlers in a trial run at Tokyo airport amid country’s surge in inbound tourism and worsening labour shortages/demographic issues (Click here to read more about this).

 

In the world of Parkinson s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In April 2026, there were 1,003 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson s” attached (compared to 5,177 for all of 2026). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – April 2026” →

Monthly Research Review – March 2026

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At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during March 2026.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

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So, what happened during March 2026?

In world news:

March 1st – An account trading under the username “Magamyman” made more than $553,000 placing bets on the prediction market site Polymarket about Iran and its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, just before an Israeli/US strike killed him (Click here to read more about this).

 

March 6th – The UK’s first long‑distance robotic-assisted surgery is reported to have been performed on a patient located 1,500 miles (2,400km) away in Gibraltar (Click here to read more about this).

 

March 12th – A red fox that sneaked onto a cargo ship in Southampton was taken into the care of the Bronx Zoo after arriving in New York (Click here to read more about this).

 

March 23rd – Mystery traders made tens of millions of dollars in mere minutes by placing bets on markets just before a surprise social media post by US President Donald Trump raising hopes of peace with Iran. Just 15 minutes before Trump’s message, there was a sudden $600 million spike in oil trading volumes and $1.5 billion on the S&P 500 stock index (Click here to read more about this – Hey Martha Stewart, you watching this?).

 

March 25th – Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos, declared a state of “national energy emergency” as a result of the war in Iran, which his administration said posed “an imminent danger of a critically low energy supply” (Click here to read more about this) ….and next comes the developing nations debt crisis…. (watch Pakistan, Egypt and Nepal)

 

In the world of Parkinson s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In March 2026, there were 1,371 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word Parkinson s attached (4,174 for all of 2026 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – March 2026” →

Monthly Research Review – February 2026

~ Simon ~ 1 Comment

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At the end of each month, the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major or interesting pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during February 2026.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

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So, what happened during February 2026?

In world news:

1st February – In his first ever indoor mile at the Boston University Terriers classic, Kiwi runner Sam Ruthe won in a time of 3:48.88. This was the eleventh fastest time ever recorded indoors, breaking the absolute New Zealand mile record of 3:49.08 of Sir John Walker from 1982, and the New Zealand indoor mile record of 3:51.06 set by Nick Willis in 2016. In 2025, Ruthe became the youngest person to break the four-minute mile. He is only 16 years of age!

 

6th February – According to data from the European Research Council (ERC), applications from the United States for its starting, consolidator and advanced grants to individual researchers — worth up to €2.5 million (US$3 million) apiece over five years — rose by 120% in its most recent round of calls, compared with an overall rise in applications of 17%. Meanwhile, Advanced Grants — for established principal investigators — saw the greatest leap in US applications, with the number nearly quintupling in just 12 months (Click here to read more about this).

 

12th February – The Dutch House of Representatives passed the Actual Return in Box 3 Act (Wet werkelijk rendement box 3) – a reform that will tax residents at a flat rate of 36% on unrealised gains (???) earned from savings, stocks, and investments, effective January 1, 2028 (Click here to read more about this).

 

13th February – The day after being named ‘undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal’ (???), President Trump (and Lee Zeldin – the head of the Environmental Protection Agency – EPA) announced that the EPA has finalized rescinding the endangerment finding. This was the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the US Clean Air Act. When asked what he would tell people concerned about the move, Mr Trump replied, “I’d tell them don’t worry about it, because this has nothing to do with public health. It just was all a scam, a giant scam” (Click here to read more about this)

 

18th February – The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) January monthly report of Russian fossil fuel exports highlighted that the European Union remains the largest buyer of Russian liquid natural gas (LNG), accounting for almost half (49%) of Russia’s total LNG exports (Click here to read more about this).

 

In the world of Parkinson s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In February 2026, there were 1,391 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word Parkinson s attached (2,803 for all of 2026 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – February 2026” →

Hyperconnectivity of the SCAN

~ Simon ~ 2 Comments

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It is exciting when new research comes along that reframes how we might look at a problem. New research published this week has done just that for Parkinson’s.

Researchers have analysed vast amounts of brain imaging data and found that it points towards a hyperconnectivity between Parkinson’s associated structures within the brain. They also found that current treatment approaches help to reduce this hyperconnectivity.

Using this data, the researchers conducted a clinical trial that further supports their paradigm shifting results. 

In today’s post, we will discuss what exactly they have discovered, why it is important, and how it could change how we view Parkinson’s.

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Source: Wikipedia

This is a photo of a young Wilder Graves Penfield.

He was 22 years old when this photo was taken in 1913. Playing/coaching football at Princeton, with a truly remarkable life still ahead of him.

Remarkable how?

Remarkable as in ‘eventful’.

For example, in 1915 he obtained a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he studied neuropathology with the greats like Sir Charles Scott Sherrington and William Osler, before he got pulled into World War I and went to France to serve as a dresser in a military hospital. He was wounded however when the boat he was aboard was torpedoed, and after recovering from his injuries he married his wife. He began studying medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, attaining his degree in 1918. All of that in just three years!

But his life was also remarkable in what he achieved in his research.

What did he do in research?

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Monthly Research Review – January 2026

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At the end of each month, the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major or interesting pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during January 2026.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

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So, what happened during January 2026?

In world news:

January 6th – While the world events provided many distractions, the US national debt quietly reached $38.5 trillion (up from $36.1 trillion in January 2025 – that’s $69,400 per second for the past 12 months) and $600 billion has already been borrowed in the 2026 financial year, which starts in October (Source and click here to read how this might be a problem in 2026 as the Government competes with corporate debt issuance).

 

January 14th – Scientists led by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported the first direct experimental observation of the Migdal effect, a quantum process in which a recoiling atomic nucleus ejects an electron, confirming a prediction made in 1939 and enabling new approaches to searches for light dark matter (Click here and here to read more about this).

 

January 16th – “The most rigorous analysis of the evidence to date”: An appraisal of 43 studies in a systematic review and 17 studies in the meta-analysis, involving hundreds of thousands of pregnancies, found maternal use of paracetamol during pregnancy does not seem to increase the likelihood of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, or intellectual disability (Click here and here to read more about this).

 

January 22nd – The USA officially withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO) exactly one year after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office directing the withdrawal (leaving unpaid fees of $260 million – click here to read more about this).

 

23rd January – In the daily effort to “flood the zone” and distract from other matters (such as the TACO move on “Iceland”), President Trump horrified veterans and allies around the world in an interview by saying that “We’ve never needed them … They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines” (Click here to read more about this, and remember: ‘If you haven’t served, respect those who have’)

 

In the world of Parkinson s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In January 2026, there were 1,520 (!!!) research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word Parkinson s attached. In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 6 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – January 2026” →

Research to get excited about?

~ Simon ~ 1 Comment

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Analysing medical data at the national level can provide a means of screening for drugs that can have an impact on the progression of chronic diseases. The large datasets of millions of people offer the opportunity to see trends for particular drugs that could potentially point towards new avenues of research.

Recently researchers in Norway have conducted such a study, looking at drugs that are associated with reduced mortality in Parkinson’s. Their results identify some agents that have already been identified by previous research.

But one of the drugs they found is is getting folks excited… literally.

In today’s post, we will review the research and consider how strong some of these associations are.

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Source: Unsplash

“It was a daisy in a glass of water”

This is how red-headed, fair skinned Paul Karason described the moment that his path was determined. He had been reading a new age magazine in the 1990s about the health and rejuvenating properties of colloidal silver. And “the story was that the daisy had been desiccated before it was put back in the water. And [now] it looked like a fresh-picked daisy” (Source).

Paul sent away for a sample of colloidal silver and started consuming it.

A lot of it.

At one point he was drinking at least 10 ounces (300ml) a day. And within a month he noticed changes. “The acid reflux problem I’d been having just went away completely,” he said. “I had arthritis in my shoulders so bad I couldn’t pull a T-shirt off. And the next thing I knew, it was just gone”

But it wasn’t till a friend visited him, that he noticed another really big change.

What was the change?

Continue reading “Research to get excited about?” →

Born in exploding stars

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Lithium – one of only three metals that can float on water – is widely used for in the treatment of as a mood stabilizer, primarily in the management of bipolar disorder, mania, and certain types of depression.

New research suggests that lithium may be a key piece of the puzzle that is Alzheimer’s.

Other researchers are asking if it could also be important in Parkinson’s.

In today’s post, we will look at what lithium is, review the new Alzheimer’s research, and consider if it has a possible place in Parkinson’s. 

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A nova. Source: phys.org

While the “big bang” may have created a small amounts of the stuff during the initial formation of the universe, astrophysicist now believe that the majority of our current stock of lithium has been manufactured in the nuclear reactions that have powered nova explosions in the intervening period.

I’m sorry: What?!?

Lithium.

Soft, silvery-white alkali metal.

Crucial for high-energy batteries.

Yeah, that part I am aware of. But what the heck are nova explosions?

A nova explosion is a transient event in the night sky caused the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently “new” star that slowly fades over weeks or months. It is caused by a binary star system in which the pair are too close and long-story-short: Big bright flash of light!

And that is where our lithium is made?

A lot of it, yep.

Lithium is amazing stuff. It has some amazing properties. And recently researchers have reported something interesting about it in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

What did they find?

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Reality is always so obstructive

~ Simon ~ 3 Comments

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Obstructive sleep apnea is a common condition that involves periods of pausing in breathing while one is asleep. 

Recent research indicates that people diagnosed with this condition may be at higher risk of developing Parkinson’s.

Curiously, the same research found that early treatment of the condition reduced the risk of going on to develop Parkinson’s.

In today’s post, we will discuss what obstructive sleep apnea is, what the new research found, and how this relates to other neurodegenerative conditions.

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Source: ifis

In 2024, there were 12,132 research reports published on Parkinson’s (based on a Pubmed search for the keyword “Parkinson’s”).

That is approximately 33 papers per day.

I think we can agree that that is a lot.

Now, within all of those papers, there are topics that get more attention than others. For example, if you search for the key words “Parkinson’s” and “alpha synuclein” (a hot topic in Parkinson’s) in the scientific search engine ‘Pubmed‘, you will find that there were a total of 13,310 papers from 1997 till 2024. In 2024 alone, there were 1,477 papers published  (that’s 4 papers every day!).

Then there are topics that don’t get much attention.

Like “Parkinson’s” and “sleep apnea”.

There were only 32 papers papers published in 2024 (less than three per month).

Ok. But what is sleep apnea?

Continue reading “Reality is always so obstructive” →

Free audiobook – “Shake well before use”

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To mark 20 years of activities, Cure Parkinson’s has released a FREE audiobook that was written by one of our co-founders, Tom Isaacs. It tells the story of Tom’s diagnosis and of his adventures while he walked 4,500 mile around the coast of Britain.

It is an absolutely brilliant story and highly recommended to all. And it is FREE!

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Source:Youtube

This is Tom.

In 1996 – at just 27-years of age – he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. After dealing with the initial shock of it all, Tom embraced his situation and became a committed, (utterly) relentless activist.

Continue reading “Free audiobook – “Shake well before use”” →

2025 – Year in Review

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At the end of each year, it is a useful process to take stock and review what we have learnt over the last 12 months.

2025 has been a very busy year for Parkinson’s research, with a lot of clinical trial results being reported and new insights being made.

In today’s post, we will consider three big Parkinson’s-related research takeaways of 2025 (based on our humble opinions here at the SoPD), and then we will provide an extended overview of some of the important pieces of news from the last 12 months (Be warned: this is a rather long post).

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Source: NYTimes

This is little unit is KJ Muldoon.

Research-wise, 2025 was a pretty big year for him (in fact, he was one of Nature’s 10 people who shaped science in 2025).

Born on the 1st August, 2024, in Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania, KJ was the fourth child of Kyle and Nicole Muldoon. The day after he was born it was noted that he was unusually sleepy and averse to feeding. Blood work quickly showed that he was accumulating ammonia in his blood, and a genetic test revealed that he had a mutation that caused carbamoyl phosphate synthetase I (CPS1) deficiency.

KJ was too young for a liver transplant which was the only major treatment available at the time, so his treatment options were looking extremely limited.

What happened next was part of what made 2025 an amazing year:

The kid doesn’t know it yet, but he made medical history as the first human to receive a personalized CRISPR-based gene therapy treatment (Click here to read the research report behind this story). And here is a timeline of events in his treatment story:

Source: NEJM 

And very recently, KJ took his first steps (Click here to see this).

Forget about all of the idiotic nonsense flooding social media and all of the witless utterances coming from our so called “leaders” and all of the talking heads on normal media.

Stories like KJ’s are made 2025 an incredible year. Part of humanity truly striving for a better future.

And this was only one story among a huge bag of uncelebrated scientific advances that occurred this year. Advances such as:

  • A team of researchers at Roche and Boston’s Children’s Hospital set a new record for the fastest human genome sequencing and analysis. It took them just under 4 hours to sequence the whole genome – in the 2010s it took 3 days (Click here to read more about this).
  • The second chikungunya vaccine (‘Vimkunya’) was approved. Chikungunya is a disease spread by mosquitoes (similar to dengue), which can cause months of joint pain and in some rare cases, paralysis. Vaccines do work (Click here to read more about this).
  • The seemingly unstoppable growth of renewable energy (Click here to read more about this).
  • The FDA gave a green-light to the first multi-person clinical trials of pig kidney transplants, which will hopefully help ease the global shortage of donor organs (Click here to read more about this).
  • The Vera C. Rubin Observatory came online.
  • The FDA has approved 44 brand new drugs – more than twice as many as were approved in 2010.
  • Lenacapavir is a long-acting antiviral injection for HIV received approval in the US for HIV prevention (Click here to read more about this).
  • The UK became the first country to offer a vaccine against gonorrhea (Click here to read more about this).
  • Researcher combined AI models RFDiffusion and AlphaFold2 to create a ‘multi-step enzyme’ for the first time, and that enzyme has never been seen before in nature (Click here to read more about this and click here to read an exemplar).
  • In October, tech company Google announced that its “quantum echoes” algorithm proved 13,000 times faster than a classical computer at predicting molecular structures (Click here to read more about this).
  • Mitochondria were discovered to be critical for memory formation in immune T cells and have an unexpected role in tissue healing (Click here and here to read more about this, respectively).

Below is a list of some of the more interesting Parkinson’s research findings of the year – by month, but starting with the top three according to the team here at SoPD HQ.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of this blog is the director of research at the medical research charity Cure Parkinson’s. For the purpose of transparency and to eliminate any sense of bias, where Cure Parkinson’s is a funder of the research it shall be noted. The selection of research topics below are based on his opinion alone and do not reflect the thoughts of any other parties.

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The 3 main SOPD highlights in Parkinson’s-related research for 2025
(in no particular order – just our opinion)

Continue reading “2025 – Year in Review” →