Scientists have found that Parkinson’s disease also causes widespread abnormalities in touch and vision side effects. The new findings were (26) on Oct. 17 at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta. Scientists studying Parkinson’s disease (PD) previously have (27) on the brain’s motor and premotor cortex, but not the somatosensory or the visual cortex. But Emory neurologist Krish Sathian, MD, PhD, and (28) had earlier discovered, through tests of tactile ability, that PD patients have sensory problems with touch. They designed a study using FMRI to investigate the brain changes (29) these sensory abnormalities. Dr. Sathian’s research group studied six patients with (30) advanced PD and six age-matched healthy controls. After documenting the (31) movement problems of PD and ruling out dementia and nerve problems in the PD patients, they (32) a common test of tactile ability to both groups, asking the (33) to use their fingers to distinguish the orientation of ridges and grooves on plastic gratings. At the same time, they conducted a brain- scanning study using FMRI. This technology measures activations of neurons (34) . The FMRI scans showed that the PD patients had much less activation of the somatosensory areas in the brain’s cortex than did the healthy controls. (35) "Our finding that the visual cortex is affected in Parkinson’s disease, while surprising, makes sense given that (36) ," Dr. Sathian notes. "Although the reasons for this are uncertain.\