This core was established in 1990 to provide human material from clinically well-characterized patients and control subjects who are needed to complete the specific aims of this program project. During the two initial funding cycles, core activities focused on recruiting and characterizing patients with PD and AD. This was accomplished by using the Parkinson?s Disease and Movement Disorders Center (PD & MDC) program that has existed within the UP s Department of Neurology since 1982 and the more recently established (1990) Memory Disorders Clinic. Patient and control subjects recruited for this program project from these two clinical programs are evaluated using standardized assessment protocols, and the clinical data is entered into a common database. Preliminary permission for a brain autopsy is obtained for all participating subjects, and clinical assessments are repeated semiannually from the time of enrollment until death.
The specific aims and methods described in this application continue previous core activities. However, this cycle will focus on the mechanistic role of synuclein in the pathology of PD, LBVAD and MSA. Thus, the focus of the core has broadened to include the identification, recruitment and clinical characterization of patients with these synucleinopathies. In addition, the core will continue to identify, recruit and characterize patients with AD who are free of extrapyramidal dysfunction and of cognitively normal control subjects in order to provide a source of autopsy material for comparison studies. In addition, the core will help assess the relationship between specific neuropathological changes found in these diseases and selected clinical features such as cognitive impairment, psychosis and mood alterations.
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