Research into Parkinson’s hallucinations earns fellowship
SEEING shadows or fullyformed shapes and figures which are not there are some of the more disconcerting and alarming symptoms for people with Parkinson’s disease.
Now, University of Otago (Christchurch) research fellow Dr KylaLouise Horne is about to begin a twoyear research project, investigating visual hallucinations in people with Parkinson’s, their trajectories and neural mechanisms, and exploring how and why hallucinations occur.
Dr Horne has received a $180,000 Canterbury Medical Research Foundation (CMRF) Emerging Research Fellowship grant to support her research work at the New Zealand Brain Research Institute (NZBRI).
She said the fellowship would allow her to build on four years of work and help paint a clearer picture of what was happening in the brains of Parkinson’s patients who hallucinated.
‘‘Results from this research may potentially enable the development of new treatment options to reduce the likelihood of hallucinations, as well as solutions for those already affected by them.’’
She said more than 12,000 New Zealanders were affected by Parkinson’s and there was no known cure for the debilitating disease.
‘‘Around half of all Parkinson’s patients experience hallucinations, and they vary from patient to patient.
‘‘Some report seeing shadows out of the corner of their eyes, while others witness fullyformed shapes and figures which aren’t there.
‘‘While alarming for some and disconcerting for others, some patients surprisingly take comfort in these hallucination experiences.
‘‘However, what we do know is that patients who experience them are far more likely to end up in residential care.’’
Dr Horne said the project would use data from other studies she had worked on, including the New Zealand Parkinson’s Progression Programme, based at the NZBRI.
The longitudinal study has followed more than 320 Cantabrians with Parkinson’s since 2007.
‘‘We’re hoping to use that data to characterise hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease, as well as looking at what might put people at greater risk of developing them.’’
From there, a group of 90 people with Parkinson’s — some who experience hallucinations, and some who do not — and an additional 30 healthy older adult volunteers, would go through a series of computerised tests while having their brain activity recorded.
‘‘That will mean we can get down to the nuts and bolts of what’s happening inside the brain,’’ she said.