{"id":222655,"date":"2025-09-30T00:15:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T05:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/how-gene-mutations-drive-dementia-in-parkinsons-disease"},"modified":"2025-09-30T00:15:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T05:15:48","slug":"how-gene-mutations-drive-dementia-in-parkinsons-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/how-gene-mutations-drive-dementia-in-parkinsons-disease","title":{"rendered":"How gene mutations drive dementia in Parkinson\u2019s disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Parkinson\u2019s disease causes both movement and cognitive deficits, and for a long time both were thought to be caused by the accumulation of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. But a new Nature Communications<\/i> study has found<\/a> that the cognitive deficits arise through a different\u2014and unexpected\u2014mechanism.<\/p>\n

The new findings suggest that mutations in a gene called GBA\u2014which are a risk factor for developing Parkinson\u2019s disease\u2014drive cognitive decline<\/a> by disrupting how neurons communicate with each other in the brain. Patients living with Parkinson\u2019s disease can experience cognitive symptoms<\/a> such as difficulty with concentrating and forgetfulness. Over time, many go on to develop dementia, in which they experience profound memory loss among other symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cDementia is often the scariest thing for many patients with Parkinson\u2019s disease, more so than motor symptoms<\/a>,\u201d says Sreeganga Chandra, PhD, professor of neurology and of neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and the study\u2019s principal investigator. \u201cWe are trying to understand the basis of cognitive dysfunction and whether we can find targets to ameliorate it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parkinson\u2019s disease causes both movement and cognitive deficits, and for a long time both were thought to be caused by the accumulation of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. But a new Nature Communications study has found that the cognitive deficits arise through a different\u2014and unexpected\u2014mechanism. The new findings suggest that mutations in a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}