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Contact the study team using the details below to take part. If there are no contact details below please ask your doctor in the first instance.
Dr
Oliver
Bandmann
o.bandmann@sheffield.ac.uk
Dr
Oliver
Bandmann
o.bandmann@sheffield.ac.uk
Extrapyramidal and movement disorders
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Pain is a very common and troublesome, but poorly understood symptom in Parkinson’s disease. Despite much research, the exact cause of the pain is unclear. Our study aims to identify which particular structures in the brain may be involved in faulty pain processing in the brain of people with Parkinson’s Disease.
Our proposed study focuses on a novel pain network which is closely linked to the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia are the area of the brain which is most severely affected by Parkinson’s Disease. We want to test whether abnormal pain in Parkinson’s Disease is due to underactivity of a particular structure within the brain stem called parabrachial nucleus . The parabrachial nucleus is very important for pain signalling from the spinal cord to the brain. We think that the parabrachial nucleus is underactive because two other small areas of the brain called subthalamic nucleus and substantia nigra pars reticulata block its activity. There is already strong evidence for overactivity of the subthalamic nucleus and substantia nigra pars reticulata in Parkinson’s Disease, but nobody has investigated the parabrachial nucleus and its possible role in Parkinson’s Disease pain yet. Functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain will be carried out on both patients with PD and healthy controls, looking specifically for activity changes within the parabrachial nucleus, subthalamic nucleus and substantia nigra reticulata in Parkinson’s Disease compared to healthy volunteers. As part of this study, the brain’s response to heat/pain stimulation to the top of the feet will be recorded. The same approach has been extensively used by colleagues who have studied pain in Diabetes and Peripheral Neuropathy1, the heat/pain stimulus was well tolerated by the trial participants. Better understanding of the faulty pain networks in the brain of Parkinson’s Disease patients will help us to develop new therapies and to test these new therapies more efficiently in future clinical trials.
Start dates may differ between countries and research sites. The research team are responsible for keeping the information up-to-date.
The recruitment start and end dates are as follows:
Observational type: Cross-sectional;
You can take part if:
You may not be able to take part if:
PARKINSON'S COHORT •Age < 18 years old •Significant cognitive impairment (Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) < 23) since this would limit the ability of any potential research participants to give informed consent •Claustrophobia •Severe general on-going general medical problems (e.g. cancer) •Evidence of respiratory failure (since this would make it difficult for research participants to lie flat in the MRI scanner) •Significant back pain (which would make it too uncomfortable for the patient/control to lie flat in the MRI scanner) •Presence of a pacemaker or other non-MR-compatible device •Pregnancy and other contraindications for MR. •Regular use of pain medication. CONTROL COHORT •Age < 18 years old •Significant cognitive impairment since this would limit the ability of any potential research participants to give informed consent •Claustrophobia •Severe general on-going general medical problems (e.g. cancer) •Evidence of respiratory failure (since this would make it difficult for research participants to lie flat in the MRI scanner) •Significant back pain (which would make it too uncomfortable for the patient/control to lie flat in the MRI scanner) •Presence of a pacemaker or other non-MR-compatible device •Pregnancy and other contraindications for MR. •Regular use of pain medication.
Below are the locations for where you can take part in the trial. Please note that not all sites may be open.
The study is sponsored by SHEFFIELD TEACHING HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST and funded by Medical Research Council (MRC) .
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Read full details
for Trial ID: CPMS 55153
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