06/10/2026
Jennifer Mammen, PhD, Associate Professor at UMass Dartmouth, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at CHeT, presented at the Parkinson’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PPMI) Annual Meeting, covering the objectives and findings of a PPMI Qualitative study that maps meaningful symptoms and impacts in people with prodromal Parkinson’s disease (PD) compared to controls.
Dr. Mammen and Dr. Jamie Adams, CHeT’s Associate Director and Associate Professor of Neurology and Movement Disorders at the University of Rochester, are the co-Principal Investigators of the cross-sectional study that aims to:
➡️ Identify and characterize potential symptoms of earliest PD
➡️ Evaluate personal meaningfulness of symptoms with classification of symptoms that are present/bothersome vs. important
➡️ Explore actual and anticipated functional and psychological impacts of potential symptoms
“This is the first time a blinded qualitative study has been conducted to compare self-reported symptoms between people at risk for Parkinson’s and people not at risk,” Dr. Mammen said.
“We found significant differences in symptoms between the groups prior to diagnosis, as well as differences between men and women, suggesting important s*x-based patterns in the onset of PD. We anticipate that identifying these earliest symptoms will help support more timely diagnosis and effective treatment, highlight the need for further research to explore s*x differences in PD, and determine specific symptoms and impacts in new PD staging systems.”
Learn more from the PPMI Mapping Symptoms Protocol:https://www.ppmi-info.org/sites/default/files/docs/PPMI020_PPMI%20Mapping%20Symptoms%20Protocol%20v1.0_22Mar2024%20(1).pdf
