Environmental factors have been implicated in the development and progression of Parkinson disease and other neurodegenerative diseases including Motor Neuron Disease (MNDs). While a number of specific environmental factors have been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases, much remains unknown. Since environmental factors such as medications are carefully tracked, our long-term goal is to identify associations between medications and risk and/or progression of neurodegenerative diseases through analysis of electronic health records. We will incorporate demographic data, medication use, comorbidities, laboratory values, limited genetic data and patient outcomes from UK Biobank in our analysis. Importantly, recent breakthroughs in causal machine learning will allow us to determine whether any observed effects are due to a true causal effect of a given drug. If any medications appear to have a causal effect in our analysis, we will further determine potential mechanisms by which the drug may be acting on the disease process. Our aim is to identify currently available medications that prevent or slow progression of these diseases and to also identify potential new targets for development of drugs to treat them.
