PhD student Karoline Knudsen and Associate Professor Per Borghammer have received 237.000 Dkr. from Jascha Fonden to study the gastrointestinal tract in patients with REM sleep behaviour disorder.

The majority of patients with REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) are known to develop Parkinson’s disease (PD) or dementia with Lewy bodies (LBD) over time. PD patients exhibit a variety of non-motor symptoms such as constipation, depression, anxiety, and decreased sense of smell, which are often present several years prior to the well-known motor symptoms. Thus, studying these RBD patients is a unique opportunity to gain knowledge about PD in the early pro-dromal fase.
The funding will be used for patient recruitment and examination of the gastrointestinal tract in RBD patients with several methods including different functional tests, PET and scintigraphy.