The Gut Brain Communication in Parkinson’s Disease Consortium (GBPDC), funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK), brings together researchers who seek to better understand the connection between gut health, the brain, and Parkinson’s Disease (PD).

The GBPDC seeks to leverage the potential role of the GI tract in the pathogenesis and progress of PD to improve patient diagnosis, care, and outcomes. Consisting of one Coordinating and Data Management Center (CDMC) and five Gastroenterology Neurology Research Centers (GNRCs) working in partnership with NIDDK, this consortium is a multidisciplinary collaborative effort to provide the infrastructure needed to establish an annotated repository of data and biospecimens to allow for the identification and validation of innovative early-phase GI-based diagnostic tools and biomarkers for PD. While major goals of the GBPDC are enrollment of participants with and without PD and collection of biological samples, the GNRCs are also planning and conducting mechanistic studies that leverage the use of these biosamples.