Professor Wolfgang Oertel: research on Parkinson Disease—big step forward, more problems to research

Expert introduction

Wolfgang Oertel is the Professor for Neurology and director of the Department of Neurology at the Philipps University Marburg, Germany (Figure 1). He obtained his MD at the University of Berlin, and completed his postgraduate neuroscience training at the National Institute of Mental Health, Maryland, USA. Professor Oertel has studied Parkinson Disease for more than 30 years, he is currently speaker of the Competence Network on Parkinson’s Disease, chairman of the German Parkinson Study Group, past president of the German Society of Neurology and Chairman of the European Affairs Committee of the European Academy of Neurology in Brussels, Belgien. He is also a member of the high level advisory board for the European Ministry for Research and Development “Scientific Panel for Health (SPH)”. He has received many prestigious awards during his career, including the “carrier award for basal ganglia disorders” from the German Research Foundation [1987–1990].

Figure 1 Professor Wolfgang Oertel, Professor for neurology, Director of the Department of Neurology, Philipps University Marburg, Germany

Editor’s note

On the International Conference: Clinical Update Sleep 2016, we were honored to have an interview with Professor Wolfgang Oertel. In the interview, Professor Oertel has introduced two major breakthroughs on research of Parkinson Disease over decades. One is from the genetic research, the causes of Parkinson Disease, have been identified and these results lead to the investigation of patients who do not have inherited Parkinson Disease. The other breakthrough is the invention of deep brain stimulation which make people able to refunction the neurologic procedure to target the so-called basal ganglia and to improve the syndromes of patients by electrical stimulations. However, there are still lots of questions in this field need to be further studied. As was mentioned by Professor Oertel, in the next decade we still need to urgently better understand the causes of PD and to find the indicator to tell Parkinson Disease is coming and to develop drugs for slowing down the progression and thus the manifestation and deterioration of Parkinson syndromes.

For more detailed content, please enjoy the interview (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Professor Wolfgang Oertel: research on Parkinson Disease—big step forward, more problems to research (1). Available online: http://www.asvide.com/articles/1023

Interview questions

• Is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder a potential gateway to prevention of Parkinson syndromes? What is your answer? And why?
• Is there any other sleep behavior disorder as other potential gateway for Parkinson syndromes like REM?
• As we know you have studied Parkinson disease for over 30 years. What are the major advances on the research of Parkinson disease over the past few decades?
• What do you think will be the next promising researching trend on Parkinson disease?
• From the perspective of patients, what should they do to prevent the deterioration when they are diagnosed with Parkinson disease at early stage?
• What do you think are the key questions that urgently need to be resolved in the next decade?

Acknowledgements

None.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

References

1. He CX. Professor Wolfgang Oertel: research on Parkinson Disease—big step forward, more problems to research. Asvide 2016;3:261. Available online: http://www.asvide.com/articles/1023

[Science Editor: Chao-Xiu (Melanie) He, JTD, hecx@amegroups.com]