Investigating the link between cognition and gait impairments in Parkinson’s disease using MRI surrogate markers of the cholinergic system and mobile EEG.

An increased risk of falling is a serious complication of Parkinson's disease that can cause an unnecessary loss of independence. We know that a first fall can, to some extent, be predicted in people who are showing small changes in the way they walk (their gait) and declining cognitive health. Moreover, these impairments in gait and cognition can limit quality of life even before a fall occurs.  As such, the current project will aim to understand how the brain regions responsible for cognitive and gait changes begin to degenerate in the very early stages of Parkinson's, and whether measuring this degeneration can improve our ability to detect (and therefore intervene in) risk of falling in the future. Additionally, the project also aims to understand how brain activity changes in the context of this degeneration, and whether these signals might also be useful for identifying people at risk of falling.