New hope for Parkinson's disease drug treatment

A class of drugs has been developed which could make treatments for Parkinson's disease and dementia much more effective.

Finding safe drugs that can cross the protective brain/blood barrier has been a challenge for scientists for many years, according to an article in the latest edition of the Journal of Neuroscience.

However, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania believe they have developed a class of drug that is able to enter the brain of animals, allowing neurological conditions to be more effectively targeted.

This drug can then destabilise degenerating neurons, improving memory function.

"The positive effect of epothilone D on cognition, without the onset of side-effects, offers hope that this class of microtubule-stabilising drugs could progress to testing in patients in the near future," said study leader Dr Virginia M-Y Lee.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently announced they had developed a a new technique using worms to test drugs to treat the condition.

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