Grant: Project Grant

Cognitive and behavioural symptoms in Parkinson's disease vary immensely. Some patients develop significant apathy or so much difficulty with concentration that they have to give up a hobby, while others take up boxing or plan local support groups. Currently, we mainly focus on measuring the severity of a patient's cognitive and behavioural symptoms, rather than honing in on identifying why patients differ so much. Meanwhile, these differences could provide important clues about: 1) the changes occurring in the brain, and 2) about the other factors in a person's life that could affect these symptoms (e.g. stress). One key reason why it has been difficult to properly measure the differences in cognitive and behavioural symptoms that arise between patients is that very large groups of patients are required and precise tests of cognition and behaviour are hard to perform on such a large scale. The first goal of this research program is therefore to establish that remote (i.e. from home) web-based testing of cognition and behaviour can be used as an alternative to in-person testing, thereby allowing us to significantly expand the reach of clinical research studies of cognition. The second goal is to identify tests of cognition that can track specific brain changes in Parkinson's patients so that we can begin to understand the brain basis of differences between patients. The third goal is to consider all of the symptoms at once to examine how they are related to one another (e.g. if a patient is more distractible, it is also the case that they are more likely to be depressed?) and to find factors in a person's brain or life that explain these relationships (e.g. are neurochemical changes a better predictor of these symptoms or is life stress a better predictor?). Better understanding these relationships will allow us to know when to offer someone a medication or when to offer them support for other areas of life.