Image Parkinson's Disease Progression Study

Summary

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative brain disorder that impairs the ability to perform functions such as grooming, dressing, cooking, and other activities of daily living. PD affected between 4.1 and 4.6 million people worldwide in 2005, and it is projected that up to 9.3 million people will be affected by 2030. Although current pharmacological therapies provide beneficial effects on motor symptoms of the disease (tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia), intolerable disability eventually develops in most patients. A disease-modifying therapy that slows disease progression is a major unmet medical need in PD. Numerous agents have neuroprotective effects in pre-clinical laboratory models, but none have been shown to have indisputable disease-modifying effects in clinical trials for patients with PD. The purpose of this research study is to investigate how the brain and motor behavior changes in PD over time in response to rasagiline which is a monoamine oxidase-B(MAO-B) inhibitor. The drug rasagiline will be tested in this study as the MAO-B inhibitor. Rasagiline has been prescribed for many years to treat symptomatic Parkinson's disease. It is FDA approved for the treatment of Parkinson's disease but has not been shown to slow disease progression. The outcome and impact of this study will provide the first evaluation of MAO-B inhibitors at slowing the progression of the nigrostriatal pathway using advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) methods in PD.

Timeline

Start

2016-12

Primary completion

2023-05-11

Completion

2023-05-11

Drugs

Indications