Parkinson's has two networks

MANHASSET, N.Y., July 11 (UPI) -- Parkinson's disease targets another brain network that regulates cognitive thought and the ability to carry out everyday tasks, according to a U.S. study.

Dr. David Eidelberg, head of the Center for Neurosciences at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y., and his colleagues measured and quantified this network of brain regions during a five-year study of newly diagnosed Parkinson's patients who agreed to be followed several times over the course of the study.

The technology is precise enough to diagnose the two brain networks -- one that regulates movement and the other cognition -- in individuals. The study also shows that the standard drugs used to treat Parkinson's alter the areas that are involved in movement but not those that regulate cognition. The network that grows abnormal over time includes the pre-frontal cortex, known as the brain's executive secretary, which organizes, plans and carries out tasks in order of importance. It's the same region that is hard hit in mild cognitive impairment, the precursor to Alzheimer's dementia.

The symptoms in the two diseases are quite different, but thinking that medicines used for Alzheimer's might help normalize this network, the scientists gave Parkinson's patients eight weeks of treatment, but it didn't work, according to the study published in the journal Brain.