Background Differential diagnosis of parkinsonian sindrome is a major challenge in movement disorders because at the onset there is an overlapping of signs and syntoms. From a neuropathological point of view, parkinsonism may be related to a degeneration of the nigrostriatal pathway or the neurodegenerative process may be more widespread [1,2]. In the early course of the a disease presenting wi...

Ablative and chronic stimulation procedures targeting the internal pallidum (GPi) and the subthalamic nucleus (STN) have led to major advancements in the treatment of Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders. Although these procedures have evolved to primarily target the posterior ventrolateral sensorimotor portion of GPi and to less selectively target STN, centrally, the ideal targets ...

The accurate diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) is not only important for deciding on treatment strategies and providing a prognosis, but also crucial for studies designed to investigate the aetiology and pathogenesis of parkinsonian disorders. Over recent decades, improvements in the characterisation of the parkinsonian syndromes have led to improvements in clinical diagnostic a...

The recent development of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) for the treatment of parkinsonian patients, particularly those in advanced stages with axial symptoms, has ignited interest into the study of this brain nucleus. In contrast to the extensively studied alterations of neural activity that occur in the basal ganglia in Parkinson's disease (PD), our underst...

Available evidence on the practice of acute pharmacological challenge tests in parkinsonian patients was reviewed by a committee of experts, which achieved a general consensus. The published data deal mainly with the acute administration of levodopa and apomorphine in Parkinson's disease. Such challenge may serve different purposes, e.g., research, diagnosis, or tailoring of treatment. Unique p...

BACKGROUND Swedish population-based national health registers are widely used data sources in epidemiological research. Register-based diagnoses of Parkinson's disease have not been validated against clinical information. METHODS Parkinson's disease (PD) and other parkinsonian disorder diagnoses were ascertained in two registers, i.e. the National Patient Register (NPR) and the Cause of Death...