Supervisors info:
Λεωνίδας Στεφανής, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Μιχαήλ Κουτσιλιέρης, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Γεώργιος Βαϊόπουλος, Ομότιμος καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is recognized as the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, after Alzheimer’s Disease, affecting 1-2% of the population over the age of 65. The main clinical features of PD include motor symptoms, such as resting tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia, as well as non-motor manifestations, involving dementia and depression. PD is considered as a multifactorial disorder, as both genetic and environmental factors contribute to its development. However, the cause of the disease still remains unknown. The Hellenic Biobank of PD is a big electronic database consisting of demographic and genetic data, as well as information about lifestyle factors of PD patients and healthy controls. The aim of this study is to statistically analyze the data of the Hellenic Biobank of PD, in order to investigate the association between exposure to environmental factors (cigarette smoking, coffee drinking, and exposure to pesticides and/or agrochemicals) and PD. Furthermore, we examine if early-onset PD (<=50 years old) and hereditary PD have distinctive characteristics, regarding the exposure to the environmental factors mentioned above, clinical manifestations and motor complications due to levodopa administration, in comparison to PD with onset age >50 years old and sporadic PD respectively.
