Targeting Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease: Novel Pharmacological and Non- Pharmacological Approaches

Whilst Parkinson’s disease (PD) is primarily characterised as a motor disorder, non-motor symptoms represent a significant burden to the PD population. These symptoms include anxiety, depression, fatigue and cognitive impairment (CI), with CI representing the single biggest predictor of quality of life, mortality and caregiver burden for PD patients. Impairments range from mild-severe and dementia and involve dysfunction in domains such as learning, memory, response inhibition, visuospatial function and executive function. Unfortunately, current treatments for CI in PD provide variable symptomatic relief but do nothing to alter disease progression. To this end, the aim of this thesis is to explore novel pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment strategies for cognitive dysfunction in PD. The first part of the thesis will investigate the role of a potential novel pathological target, Fyn kinase, in the pathophysiology of neurological disease, examine its distribution in key anatomical regions of the PD brain, and evaluate the potential of inhibition of this target for the treatment of cognitive impairment in PD. The second part of this thesis will instead turn to a non-pharmacological strategy, exploring the utility of cognitive training (CT) in PD and engaging in a co-design process for a “Serious Games” based strategy to deliver CT in this population.

Author dc:creator

• Guglietti, Bianca Laura

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Corrigan, Frances
• Collins-Praino, Lyndsey
• Mustafa, Sanam

• Parkinson's disease
• neurodegeneration
• neuroinflammation
• cognitive impairment
• cognitive training

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2440/133784

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.library.adelaide.edu.au:2440/133784