The Stanford Parkinson's Disease Plasma Study

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects over 1.6 million people in the United States and whose incidence increases with age, affecting over 1% of people over the age of 65. The neuropathological processes involved in PD are widespread throughout the brain, and are reflected in a constellation of motor, cognitive, mood and other non-motor symptoms. Treatments to date have largely focused on dopamine replacement strategies or deep brain stimulation, both symptomatic treatments. As neurodegenerative diseases progress, there are major changes throughout the body and brain. These changes are transmitted in the body via the circulatory system between organs, tissues and cells. Recent findings from multiple laboratories have shown that infusions of young plasma into aging rodents can have beneficial effects on cognitive functions. This suggests that the circulating components of plasma can improve cognitive and disease-relevant symptoms. This has motivated the field to treat multiple disorders with blood products and their constituent active components. The established safety of blood transfusions allows the investigators to test whether infusions of young plasma can ease the neurological symptoms in human subjects with neurodegenerative diseases. A related study of plasma infusions has already been completed at Stanford in patients with Alzheimer's disease (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02256306). The investigator proposes to test the safety and efficacy of transfusing young plasma into PD participants, in order to establish its effects on motor and cognitive functions in participants in a Phase 1 study. The successful completion of this study will inform the design of future, larger and multicenter studies with the goal to determine whether infusions of young plasma can ameliorate the neurodegenerative symptoms and underlying pathophysiology in Parkinson's disease.