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Parkinson's Disease, Dementia & Ageing
Our research at POWMRI is to understand how the brain ages,
both successfully and unsuccessfully. We are particularly
interested in age-related neurodegenerative diseases because
these are now major health problems due to increased life
expectancy being a flow-on from the decreasing impact of infectious
and systemic diseases.
In general, dementias are caused by changes involving most
of the outer layer of the brain (the cortex), while movement
disorders are caused by changes deep inside the brain core.
At POWMRI, we are performing different types of research involving
large numbers of people, families and individuals, tissues
donated for research, as well as animal and cellular models
of neurodegeneration and test-tube experiments on different
molecules of interest. It is necessary to use a great variety
of techniques and to study people carefully as the mechanisms
of neurodegeneration are still unclear, and it is not yet
known when irreversible damage occurs.
Dementia
One of the most feared diseases in society is dementia. Diseases
causing dementia rob people of their ability to think,
reason and remember. Because the underlying mechanisms causing
dementia are poorly understood, there are no disease-modifying
treatments available to stop or halt these neurodegenerative
dementias. We are studying the cellular causes of these dementias,
and developing methods to identify patients with different
diseases in the clinic.
Parkinson’s
disease
Parkinson’s is the most common movement disorder with
an estimated 80,000 Australians living with this disease.
While symptomatic treatments are available for Parkinson’s
disease, there is no cure. We are developing tools to identify
people early so that therapies targeting the neurodegeneration
can be used.
Ageing and Aboriginal Health
To determine the impact of brain diseases particularly in
the elderly, normal ageing must be studied. We have been
carefully studying a group of elderly people in Sydney for
over 10 years. Initially, over 600 people agreed to
participate in these studies and the majority who are still
alive remain independent in the community, many now over 90
years old.
Brain
donation for research, and DNA
donation for research
Much of our research would not be possible without community
minded people donating blood for genetic studies, and their
brains for research into neurodegenerative disease when they
die. These links discuss the reasons and how to go about participating
in these programmes.
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