Kinesiology professor Mark Guadagnoli looked back 5,000 years to find an idea that may lead to a novel treatment for Parkinson's disease. The catch: the treatment is derived from a crop that today contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. "One of the oldest documented medical techniques was to use a nicotine derivative to treat people whose symptoms were remarkably similar to Parkinson's disease," Guadagnoli says.
He recently found similar motor behaviors in a study comparing Parkinson's patients and tobacco users suffering from nicotine withdrawl. Guadagnoli measured the movements of the research subjects using a device he developed along with Parkinson's researchers at Arizona State University. The device, a twofoot by two-foot digitizing tablet, is similar to a tablet computer. The test is a simple one: "Basically, it's the adult equivalent of coloring inside the lines as fast as you can," Guadagnoli says. His next step is to see what effects nicotine has on Parkinson's patients.
Guadagnoli realizes the risk in granting anything but a negative association to nicotine. "I am not suggesting that people with Parkinson's disease start smoking or chewing tobacco," he says. But initial results call for more exploration of nicotine's seemingly beneficial effects.
Guadagnoli's primary research interest is the mechanisms of the brain, and he found research on Parkinson's disease as one way to better understand the brain. He considers neuroscience one of the great frontiers of science. "I think that there are really two major areas that we know very little about," he says. "One of them is the deepest depths of the ocean, the other is the human brain."
Since Guadagnoli began working with Parkinson's patients, he has learned more than he expected about the impact of chronic neurological diseases upon the individual. "Even though I didn't get into Parkinson's research 'to find a cure,' seeing these people and understanding more about what they have to combat on a daily basis motivates me to do what I can to help." He is not alone in the effort, and UNLV researchers are increasingly taking an interdisciplinary approach. Guadagnoli, for example, is working with colleagues in biology and psychology to draw together the strengths of each discipline to better understand the human body's nervous system. "We believe very strongly that you need to have the interdisciplinary work or you're not going to make the advances," Guadagnoli says. "Pooling our resources is the best way for UNLV to compete with larger universities for vital research dollars."
Harvey Wallmann, chair of the physical therapy department, says the possibility for collaboration on campus creates incredible research opportunities. He mentioned research in chronic neurological diseases as well as studies combining the resources of departments within UNLV's Division of Health Sciences. They're also reaching out to some areas you would expect, like biology, and others you would not, like dance.
The researchers are drawn together, Wallmann says, by the need to share perspectives in addressing universal problems. It boils down to an essential question, he says: "What can we all do that's going to have an important impact on the community?" The answers, he says, will be found through collaboration.
