More insight is needed into the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and a personalized medicine approach, as well as the gut-brain axis, the role of inflammation, and the development of PD-related dementia and visual hallucinations. For this reason, the DUPARC cohort was started, a cohort of more than 150 L-DOPA-naïve, de novo PD patients who are extensively phenotyped using MRI imaging, F-DOPA PET (dopaminergic) and FEOBV PET (cholinergic) imaging, gut microbiome analysis (16S and metagenomics), optical coherence tomography, and neuropsychological examination, combined with genotyping (using GSA MD and single-cell RNA sequencing).
In this study, participants of the Lifelines-DEEP cohort serve as appropriate controls. Another line of research focuses on the treatment of visual hallucinations with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). In this research, advanced techniques are used to image brain network connectivity, based on which rTMS treatment is provided.