Dr Angelika Zarkali (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) has been awarded £2.9 million to lead a research project on the link between Parkinson’s disease and developing dementia. Currently it is estimated that patients with Parkinson’s are six times more likely to develop dementia within their lifetime than the rest of the population. Half of all people with Parkinson’s develop dementia within 10 years of a diagnosis.
Dr Zarkali said of her project: “Over the next four years, we will use multimodal neuroimaging techniques in different populations of people with Parkinson’s disease, to identify circuits responsible for Parkinson’s dementia, and apply novel non-invasive ultrasound stimulation on those circuits to improve cognition. By combining multiple sources of information from large numbers of people with Parkinson’s, we will be able to select the best target for non-invasive stimulation of these brain circuits. We will then apply ultrasound simulation to this target in 50 people with Parkinson’s disease. We will use MR imaging to assess the effect of ultrasound stimulation on brain function and neurotransmitter levels.
“Together, these experiments will establish optimal non-invasive stimulation targets to improve cognition in Parkinson’s and directly test the efficacy of ultrasound stimulation as a potential treatment. This has potential as a new treatment approach for more widespread use in people with Parkinson’s and other dementias.”
She added on receiving the prestigious fellowship: “I am delighted and honoured to have been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. I am really excited to start work towards this aim and for the opportunity to interact with a fantastic cohort of fellows to share knowledge and experience and make a real difference for patients.”