Solving the 'Parkinson Puzzle'

Our clinical research is conducted in the Morton and Gloria Shulman Movement Disorders Clinic and with important support through the Edmond J. Safra Program in Parkinsons Disease and recently the Lily Safra Chair in Movement Disorders.

We are involved in a large number of clinical research trials including pharmacologic studies evaluating a number of drugs at various stages of Parkinson's disease. Several of these trials are in collaboration with the Parkinson Study Group.

The Toronto Western Hospital Movement Disorders Program remains a world leader in the surgical management of Parkinson's disease. Recent studies include evaluation of deep brain stimulation in novel sites or for new indications.

Collaborators in the surgical arm of the program include Drs. Alfonso Fasano and Renato Munhoz in neurology and  Drs. Andres Lozano, Moji Hodaie, Suneil Kalia and Bill Hutchison in neurosurgery.

Neuropsychological and imaging evaluations of patients participating in these studies represent an important component of our collaborative research. Additional neurophysiologic studies in surgical patients as well as in other movement disorders are carried out by Dr. Robert Chen.

Clinical trials are very active in the program. Dr. Susan Fox directs a program in clinical neuropharmacology and early proof of principle studies. Dr. Connie Marras has a PhD in clinical epidemiology and is directing a program in this field as it applies to movement disorders.

We have recently developed a specialty clinic in the ataxias directed by Drs. Elizabeth Slow and Renato Munhoz. Dr. Slow also directs our Palliative Care Program for Parkinsons disease and related movement disorders.

Neuroimaging is an important component of our program and in addition to magnetic resonance imaging we are actively developing a positron-emission tomography program. Dr. Antonio Strafella directs a very active functional imaging research program using positron emission tomography and fMRI.

Molecular and cell biology and clinical genetics of movement disorders including Parkinson's disease is an areas of expanding interest in collaboration with Drs. Peter St George-Hyslop, Ekaterina Rogaeva and Lorraine Kalia.

Finally, we are actively collaborating with Dr. Jonathan Brotchie's laboratory in the study of animal models of movement disorders, particularly levodopa-induced dyskinesias.

This broad based research program is directed at attempting to solve the 'Parkinson puzzle' at many levels including attempts at understanding the cause(s), improving the accuracy of diagnosis preventing/slowing the progression and treating the later stages more effectively.