PSPA is the only UK charity dedicated to supporting people living with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. PSP is a degenerative disease of the brain and nervous system which leaves people unable to move, speak or swallow unaided. Most people with PSP will die within about seven years. There is currently no cure or any effective treatment.
When potential disease modifying drugs for PSP are being tested, it is difficult to assess how well they are working without having a method of reliably measuring what is happening inside the brain, and how this relates to any changes in the patient’s condition. The Pixel Fund is helping to fund our PROSPECT-MR research project, which is looking for ways to do this by combining MRI scanning with a variety of other methods. The project brings together researchers from four major research centres in Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester and UCL, who are working with PSP patients and their carers over a three year period.
A reliable tool for assessing the effect of drugs on the brain will make trials much more cost-effective and could revolutionise the design of clinical trials by enabling patients to be included who are at an earlier stage of the disease, when such drugs are more likely to be effective.
On behalf of The PSP Association