Autistic Patients at High Risk of Parkinson's Disease: Study

People with autism could be at a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease early in life, according to a large-scale study that showed similar underlying biological mechanisms of the conditions.

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Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet questioned a possible connection between the neuropsychiatric diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which affects an individual's thought processes, behaviour, and interpersonal communication, and early-onset Parkinson's disease. The results, published in JAMA Neurology, show that people with an autism diagnosis were four times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than people without such a diagno