Early raphe nucleus pathology and depression with a-syn seeding: A novel approach to targeting mTOR for prodromal Parkinsonism.
Co-applicants
- Dr. Shawn Hayley (Principal Applicant) – Dept. of Neuroscience Carleton University
- Dr. Paul Albert – Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, uOttawa
- Dr Faranak Vahid-Ansari- Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, uOttawa
- Dr. Baptiste Lacoste- Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Med, uOttawa (TEM Core)
- Dr. Hongyu Sun- Dept. of Neuroscience, Carleton University
- Dr. Nafissa Ismail- Dept. of Psychology, uOttawa
- Dr. Matthew Holahan- Dept. of Neuroscience, Carleton University
- Dr. Kyle Biggar- Dept. of Biology, Carleton University
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is not only associated with motor symptoms, but also non-motor symptoms. Depression is one of the most prevalent, debilitating and it is difficult to treat and occurs much earlier than motor disability. We developed a PD animal model that captures early depressive symptoms (and later motor impairment) which we propose is useful for modeling the early stages of PD and the development of biomarkers. In this grant, we propose to assess the role of a brain region, called the raphe, as a key area that is involved in early-stage PD. In particular, we will study how the pathological fibril form of the protein, a-synuclein, damages the raphe causing the progression of symptoms from depression to motor disability. We believe that targeting the mTOR system (which controls “garbage” systems in the brain) in the raphe will have therapeutic potential and block the a-synuclein damage and halt disease progression.
CoMANAGE-PD: Connected Care for Parkinson disease – development and evaluation of a care pathway in the primary care settings
Co-applicants
- Tiago A. Mestre (Principal Applicant),Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders Center, The Ottawa Hospital, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa
- Scientist, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
- Sylvie Grosjean (Principal Co-Applicant - Co-design), Professor, School of Communication, University of Ottawa
- Sathya Karunananthan (Principal Co-Applicant - eConsult/Clinical Epidemiology), Early Career Researcher, Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Investigator, Bruyère Research Institute
- Clare Liddy (Co-Applicant – eConsult creator/Family Medicine), Professor and Chair, Department of Family Medicine, University of Ottawa
- David Grimes (Co-Applicant), Director, Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders Center, The Ottawa Hospital
- Emily Evans (Collaborator), iCARE-PD nurse, Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders Center, The Ottawa Hospital
- Pat Evans (Collaborator), Person with lived experience, Parkinson disease advocate
- Suzanne Rintoul (Collaborator), Executive Director, Perth Family Health Unit
There are about 100,000 aging Canadians living with Parkinson disease (PwP) today. The healthcare system is falling behind: (a) specialist care is delayed for diagnosis and support of all PwP, (b) knowledge about management is often limited to specialty centres, and (c) health services access is fragmented. Primary/community providers are not usually involved in care delivery and defer to PD specialists. Together with the Perth Family Health Unit care providers and PwP, we propose to co-develop, implement and conduct a pilot evaluation of a pathway for a care continuum between the community and a PD specialty center using more efficient communication and sharing of care knowledge for PD, as well as supporting patient empowerment. This is CoMANAGE-PD.
The CoMANAGE-PD project is the first step for a novel model of empowerment of community care for PD and provides strong evidence that can be used to spread our innovation across Ontario and Canada.
Detection of Parkinson’s with 12 Questions, 8 Scents and Blood Pressure Results
Co-applicants
- Michael G. Schlossmacher, MD (Principal Applicant), The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa Brain & Mind Research Institute)
- Juan Li, PhD (Co-Applicant, Early Career Researcher, Member of EDI Group, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute)
- Andrew Seely, MD, PhD (Co-Applicant, Departments of Surgery and Critical Care, The Ottawa Hospital, University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine)
- Sarah Jane Batten, MD (Person with Lived Experience and Retired Family Doctor)
- Joseph Saade, MD (Collaborator, Neurologist at Hull Hospital, Gatineau, QC.)
- Douglas Manuel, MD, MSc (Co-Applicant, Primary Care Physician, Methodologist, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine)
Access to specialists remains a challenge in Canada. Delaying the diagnosis of Parkinson disease (PD) worsens disability. We recently developed a simple-to-use tool to identify Parkinson’s patients, called “PREDIGT2.0”. Our team’s goal is to enable non-experts to identify PD. PREDIGT2.0 includes an abbreviated questionnaire and simplified smell test. In work funded by the PRC, PREDIGT2.0 differentiated PD patients from healthy controls with 97% accuracy, and separated PD from other brain conditions (e.g., dementia) with 79% accuracy. We wish to improve the important separation of PD from other diseases by adding an easy-to-obtain biomarker to PREDIGT2.0 that is relatively specific for PD. Reductions in blood pressure when standing up and decreased heart rate variability occur frequently in PD. We hypothesize that adding these variables will improve PD’s differentiation from other diseases (”PREDIGT3.0”). We will test this in Ottawa to provide evidence that Parkinson’s can be diagnosed ahead of formal neurological assessment.