EEG investigation of the pain in Parkinson’s disease and controls
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An EEG investigation of the pain response in Parkinson’s disease, and in Healthy Subjects after amino acid modulation
IRAS ID
179720
Contact name
Monty Silverdale
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The purpose of our study is to try and understand why pain is such a common symptom in Parkinson’s disease. Although it is not widely recognised, more than 50% of Parkinson’s disease patients suffer from chronic pain.
We will be investigating the response to pain in people with Parkinson’s disease to find out how it is altered. We will use a procedure called electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the brain’s activity after giving a mildly painful heat pulse from a laser. We will compare the response to pain in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease with the response in control participants without Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s disease causes low levels of certain chemicals within the brain, including dopamine and serotonin. We believe that the brain response to pain is altered in people with Parkinson’s disease. We do not know whether this is because they have low levels of dopamine in the brain, whether this is because they have low levels of serotonin in the brain or whether there is another reason.
In this study we will also be investigating the response to pain in healthy subjects after we have given them a special “breakfast” which will lead to them having low levels of either dopamine or serotonin in the brain. This special “breakfast” is called amino acid depletion. It is perfectly safe. The effect only lasts for a few hours and then wears off completely. By using amino acid depletion we will be able to investigate what happens to this response when the brain has low levels of one of these chemicals. The results of this study will help us to understand why Parkinson’s disease patients experience so much more pain than those without Parkinson’s disease.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NW/0644
Date of REC Opinion
29 Sep 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion