A database of lysosomal proteins is already guiding researchers in studying how brain cells’ waste and recycling systems work – or don’t – in Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
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Parkinson’s disease (PD), which affects movement, and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which affects memory, seem like distinct conditions. Research reveals these brain disorders share biological patterns. In January 2026, The Michael J. Fox Foundation hosted a wide-ranging panel discussion exploring how Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Lewy body dementia overlap, from symptoms to shared protein changes in the brain.
The panel included Dr. Melissa Armstrong, a movement disorder specialist who directs Lewy body dementia research at the University of Florida, Dr. Tom Tropea, chief medical officer at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders, and Fred Goldstein, who has cared for his father with Lewy body dementia and his mother with Alzheimer’s. Katie Kopil, senior vice president and head of clinical research at The Michael J. Fox Foundation, moderated.
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Each year, around 90,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease that can cause tremors and affect cognition. Scientists are working to identify some of the earliest signs of the disease, and to figure out how we might test for—and treat—Parkinson’s in the future.
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On January 10, 2026, Stanford Medicine hosted a seminar on “Gut-Brain & Parkinson’s Disease”, exploring how the gastrointestinal tract may hold the key to both the origin and early detection of the disease. This seminar shared the latest between bioengineering and clinical neurology, presenting a compelling case for the “Body-First” hypothesis—the idea that Parkinson’s pathology may begin in the gut due to environmental triggers before reaching the brain. The featured Stanford speakers in different fields included movement disorder neurologists Dr. Kathleen Poston and Dr. Bianca Palushaj, neurogastroenterologist Dr. Leila Neshatian, and researcher Yasmine Kehnemouyi, PhD candidate, and ended with a panel moderated by bioengineer Dr. Todd Coleman. These are notes from the seminar.
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This August 2025 podcast from RSNA’s Radiology Journal addresses biomarkers (blood, imaging, and cerebrospinal fluid) for Lewy body dementia and other dementias. While the audience for the podcast is healthcare professionals, the content may be of interest to our lay community. The speakers included Dr. Kathleen Poston, chief of the movement disorders division at Stanford and co-director of the Lewy Body Dementia Association Research Center of Excellence at Stanford.
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