What Parkinson’s Tells Us About the Brain

Scientific research can sometimes be adventurous, like when Jay L. Albert, a Parkinson’s researcher, at Emory University in Atlanta, mounted on a tandem bike with Cathy Frazier his patient. The two were on a tour across Iowa hoping to raise awareness of the neurodegenerative disease where Dr. Albert advised Parkinson’s patients that they do not have to sit back and wait for the ailment to control their lives. However, something unexpected happened on their first day riding. Micrographia, a condition where a person’s handwriting, legible at first, would become smaller, more spidery and unreadable as one continued to write, presented itself. In the evening, Ms. Frazier signed a birthday card with no difficulty and confirmed that she felt as if she did not have Parkinson’s.

Dr. Albert, now the endowed research chair at the Clevand Clinic in Ohio was impressed and embarked on a series of experiments, in which he had people with Parkinsons disease ride tandem bicycles. However, the preliminary results are raising questions as to whether the exercise can help to combat the disease and whether forced workouts affect the brain differently than a gentler activity does, even on the non-patient.

Scientists have discovered that in lab animals, forced and voluntary exercise have different outcomes. For instance, rodents like to run which is voluntary unlike when you put an animal in a treadmill and control the speed where the activity becomes forced. In animals, the effects are more beneficial after the forced exercise. A study from 2008 showed rats forced to run generated more new brain cells after eight weeks than those who ran voluntarily. In another similar experiment, mice that were required to exercise on a treadmill performed better on cognitive test than those given access to running wheels.

Before Dr. Albert work, there had been few comparable experiments in human beings; however, he solved the problem by placing volunteers with Parkinson’s on the rear seat of a modified tandem bicycle. At first, each volunteer was to ride on a solo stationery bicycle at his own speed. The results were that the riders in the back pushed the pedals harder and faster than was comfortable for them. After eight weeks, most patients showed significant lessening of tremors and better body control, improvements lingered up to four weeks after they stopped the exercise. The findings contrasted with some earlier results involving voluntary exercise on Parkinson’s patients like the weight loss training, which had different effects.

The forced pedaling regimen leads to better full-body movement control that affected the rider’s brain and muscles. Whether forced exercise would have similar effects on a healthy brain remains unknown as intense exercise of any kind produces comparable brain reactions. Data shows that people who exercise frequently, have less risks of developing Parkinson’s and neurological diseases.

Dr.Alberts, partnered with Y.M.C.A, offers special tandem cycling programs for Parkinson’s patients and hopes to expand the program nationwide. He is also planning studies with stroke’s patients, in hopes the brain changes following forced exercise could ease relearning of physical skills. However, he cautions that this is not the cure but it helps significantly with tremors and other symptoms. He plans to return to Iowa bike event next summer and expects to be joined by Ms.Frazier.