PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

FSU College of Medicine research links Parkinson's disease and neuroticism

2021-04-15
(Press-News.org) New research from the Florida State University College of Medicine has found that the personality trait neuroticism is consistently associated with a higher risk of developing the brain disorder Parkinson's disease.

The research by Professor of Geriatrics Antonio Terracciano and team, published in Movement Disorders, found that adults in the study who scored in the top quartile of neuroticism had more than 80% greater risk of Parkinson's, compared to those who scored lower on neuroticism.

"Some clinicians think that the anxiety and depression is just the result of Parkinson's," Terracciano said. "However, our findings suggest that some emotional vulnerability is present early in life, years before the development of Parkinson's disease."

The effects were similar for women and men and across socioeconomic strata. Furthermore, the association was virtually unchanged in models that excluded incident cases within the first five years of follow-up and remained significant in models that accounted for demographic variables and other risk factors, including smoking, physical activity, anxiety and depression.

Three similar studies have published results consistent with Terracciano's findings, but with smaller sample sizes. Collectively, they provide a "pretty robust and replicable" assessment of the link between neuroticism and Parkinson's, Terracciano said.

"It kind of gives you a better understanding of the risk factors for the disease and what could be a contributing cause," he said. "This is one of many [factors], but the evidence is convincing."

Globally, an estimated six million people suffer from Parkinson's disease -- about 1% of all older adults -- making it the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's. The causes of Parkinson's disease are not well understood, but scientists believe genetic and environmental factors contribute to its onset.

Neuroticism is a personality trait that measures individual differences in the tendency to experience negative emotions, vulnerability to stress, inability to resist urges and self-consciousness. It is one of the five major personality traits known as the "Big Five" or five-factor model of personality and is one of the most studied psychological dispositions for its relevance spanning normal to abnormal emotional functioning.

Neuroticism has been linked to mood disorders and Alzheimer's, but there have been fewer studies on its prospective connection with Parkinson's.

"Individuals who score high in neuroticism are at higher risk for poor health outcomes across the lifespan, particularly in the domain of mental health and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and related dementias," Terracciano said.

Central to Terracciano's research was a large-scale study by the UK Biobank, which recruited nearly a half-million individuals ages 40-69 between 2006 and 2010, and collected data obtained over nearly 12 years of follow up. A baseline assessment measured neuroticism. There were 1,142 identified cases of Parkinson's ascertained through UK National Health Service electronic health records or death records up to 2018.

"Anxiety and depression are comorbid with Parkinson's disease," Terracciano said. "Many people with Parkinson's tend to be anxious or tend to get depressed. Part of that could be due to the disease and how it alters the brain and can have an influence on emotions. Part could be a psychological reaction of having a diagnosis of the disease."

Parkinson's is a long-term degenerative brain disorder that causes progressive decline of motor and physical functions. As the disease progresses, nerve cell damage in the brain causes dopamine levels to drop, leading to symptoms such as tremors, slow movement, stiffness and loss of balance. Dopamine is known as a "feel-good" hormone involved in reward, motivation, memory and attention in addition to regulating body movements.

Terracciano led the research team, which included Damaris Aschwanden, a post-doctoral researcher in the FSU Department of Geriatrics, and Angelina Sutin, professor in the FSU Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine. Researchers from the University of Montpellier in France; the National Research Council, Sant'Anna Institute and Tor Vergata University of Rome in Italy; and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingston contributed to this study.

INFORMATION:



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Modelling ancient antarctic ice sheets helps us see future of global warming

Modelling ancient antarctic ice sheets helps us see future of global warming
2021-04-15
AMHERST, Mass. - Last month saw the average concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) climb to almost 418 parts-per-million, a level not seen on Earth for millions of years. In order to get a sense of what our future may hold, scientists have been looking to the deep past. Now, new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which combines climate, ice sheet and vegetation model simulations with a suite of different climatic and geologic scenarios, opens the clearest window yet into the deep history of the Antarctic ice sheet and what our planetary future might hold. The Antarctic ice sheet has attracted the particular interest of the scientific community because it is "a lynchpin in the earth's climate system, affecting everything from ...

Can financial stress lead to physical pain in later years?

2021-04-15
Financial stress can have an immediate impact on well-being, but can it lead to physical pain nearly 30 years later? The answer is yes, according to new research from University of Georgia scientists. The study, published in Stress & Health, reveals that family financial stress in midlife is associated with a depleted sense of control, which is related to increased physical pain in later years. "Physical pain is considered an illness on its own with three major components: biological, psychological and social," said Kandauda A.S. Wickrama, first author and professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. "In older adults, it co-occurs with other health problems like limited physical functioning, loneliness and cardiovascular ...

FSU engineers improve performance of high-temperature superconductor wires

FSU engineers improve performance of high-temperature superconductor wires
2021-04-15
Florida State University researchers have discovered a novel way to improve the performance of electrical wires used as high-temperature superconductors (HTS), findings that have the potential to power a new generation of particle accelerators. An image of Bi-2212, bismuth-based superconducting wires. (Mark Wallheiser/FAMU-FSU College of Engineering) Researchers used high-resolution scanning electron microscopy to understand how processing methods influence grains in bismuth-based superconducting wires (known as Bi-2212). Those grains form the underlying ...

Understanding the growth of disease-causing protein fibres

Understanding the growth of disease-causing protein fibres
2021-04-15
Amyloid fibrils are deposits of proteins in the body that join together to form microscopic fibres. Their formation has been linked to many serious human diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Type 2 diabetes. Until today, scientists have been unable to reliably measure the speed of fibril growth, as there have been no tools that could directly measure growth rate in solution. However, researchers from the UK's University of Bath and the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source have now invented a technique that does just that. Results from their study are published in RSC Chemical Biology. "This is an important breakthrough, ...

Small physician offices are seeing negative effects from virtual health care models

2021-04-15
In a newly released study, researchers found that remote and virtual care models can negatively impact small physician offices. Three researchers from END ...

Child Mind Institute's CRISIS survey yields insights to psychological impact of COVID-19

2021-04-15
To better understand the psychological and physical impact caused by the profound consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic - and also inform priorities for interventions and policy changes to address the mental health consequences of the pandemic -- researchers from the Center for the Developing Brain at the Child Mind Institute developed and deployed the CoRonavIruS health and Impact Survey (CRISIS). This questionnaire covered key topics relating to mental distress and resilience during the pandemic. According to a newly-published manuscript of the findings, perceived risk of COVID-19, prior mental health status, and lifestyle changes were key predictors of mental health during the pandemic in adults and children surveyed in the U.S. and U.K. In the study, supported by the Morgan Stanley ...

Agricultural trade across US states can mitigate economic impacts of climate change

Agricultural trade across US states can mitigate economic impacts of climate change
2021-04-15
URBANA, Ill. - Agricultural producers deal firsthand with changing weather conditions, and extreme events such as drought or flooding can impact their productivity and profit. Climate change models project such events will occur more often in the future. But studies of the economic consequences of weather and climate on agriculture typically focus on local impacts only. A new study from the University of Illinois looks at how changes in weather - including extreme events - may decrease crop profit in one state while increasing profits in other states. The secret ingredient: U.S. interstate trade. It is expected to mitigate ...

Nuclear DNA from sediments helps unlock ancient human history

Nuclear DNA from sediments helps unlock ancient human history
2021-04-15
The field of ancient DNA has revealed important aspects of our evolutionary past, including our relationships with our distant cousins, Denisovans and Neandertals. These studies have relied on DNA from bones and teeth, which store DNA and protect it from the environment. But such skeletal remains are exceedingly rare, leaving large parts of human history inaccessible to genetic analysis. To fill these gaps, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology developed new methods for enriching and analyzing human nuclear DNA from sediments, which are abundant at almost every archaeological site. Until now, only ...

The Internet brings people into big cities, new study suggests

2021-04-15
The widespread proliferation of the internet and information and communication technologies (ICT) has drawn people into urban centres, according to new research. Despite being able to access data at the drop of a hat or speak face-to-face to people on the other side of the world, the evolution of technological capabilities hasn't led to an exodus from cities. In fact experts at the University of Bristol have found quite the opposite; that the increased adoption of ICT has resulted in national urban systems - cities within a country - that are characterised by higher population concentrations. ...

Latest Neuropixels probes can track neurons over weeks

2021-04-15
A new generation of miniature recording probes can track the same neurons inside tiny mouse brains over weeks -- and even months. The new tools build on the success of the original Neuropixels probes released in 2017 and currently used in more than 400 labs. Neuropixels 2.0 are much smaller -- about a third the size of their predecessors. They're designed to record the electrical activity from more individual neurons and have the unique ability to track this activity over extended time periods. That makes them especially useful for studying long-term phenomena like learning and memory in small animals such as mice, says Tim Harris, a senior fellow at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus who led the project. Harris and his colleagues describe the advance in a paper published online ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Sleepier during the day? For some older people, it’s linked to twice the dementia risk

Is increased sleepiness in our 80s tied to higher dementia risk?

South Africa and China establish record-breaking 12,900 km ultra-secure quantum satellite link

A rule-changer for ceramic fuel cells

Good vibrations: Scientists discover a groundbreaking method for exciting phonon-polaritons

CNIC scientists discover a type of immune cell that produces defensive "shields" in the skin

Science behind “Polly want a cracker” could guide future treatment design for speech disorders

Brain imaging reveals surprises about learning

Scientists see the first steps of DNA unwinding

Earliest stages and possible new cause of stomach cancer revealed

Unique cell shape keeps lymphatic vessels and plant leaves stable

New understanding of B cell mutation strategies could have implications for vaccines

Sea level rise after the last ice age: More knowledge

New mechanism behind adaptive immunity revealed. It could impact how we design vaccines.

Hyperuricemia: Current state and prospects

What happens in the male mouse brain during sex

Prescription stimulant use, misuse, and use disorder among US adults ages 18 to 64

Suicide and self-harm events with GLP-1 receptor agonists in adults with diabetes or obesity

Pregnancy irreversibly remodels the mouse intestine

Blocking gut cannabinoids may prevent leaky gut

Plant patch can detect stress signals in real time

NFL’s Buffalo Bills continue CPR education kicking off year 3 of the HeartBEAT initiative

Team finds regional, age-related trends in exposure to drug-resistant pathogen

Euclid opens data treasure trove, offers glimpse of deep fields

Pacific oyster may colonize the Baltic Sea

New material allows amputees to adjust fit of prosthetic limbs throughout the day, using a smartphone

E-cigarettes linked to lower cardiac risks compared to tobacco cigarettes in people with HIV

High levels of traumatic stress found in caregivers of adult cancer patients

New carbon-negative material could make concrete and cement more sustainable

Researchers optimize a method using seawater that produces mineral deposits while trapping carbon dioxide

[Press-News.org] FSU College of Medicine research links Parkinson's disease and neuroticism