We are a research team in the Clinical Neurocardiology Section, Clinical Neurosciences Program of the Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Bethesda, Maryland.
Over the past several years we have conducted extensive research in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) and related disorders. This research includes “biomarkers,” which are objective measures of a disease. We have found several biomarkers of PD. Now we need to test whether individuals who have these biomarkers develop PD later in life. We believe that identifying such individuals will help immensely in developing and testing ways to prevent or at least postpone the appearance of the disease in those who are at risk.