Dr. Dawn Bowers and her colleagues, Dr. Adam Woods and Dr. Christopher Hess, have received a Parkinson’s Foundation Impact Award to pilot a novel, low cost intervention for improving motor skills and cognition in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. The intervention is based on positive neuroprotective and disease modifying effects of near infrared (NIR) stimulation in parkinsonian animal models, both rodent and macaque. The UF study is a blinded sham controlled RCT that involves transcranial and intranasal delivery of low level light (near infrared) over a 2 week period. Presumed mechanisms of change induced by NIR stimulation will be tested via neuroimaging procedures (MRI, MRS) that are linked to mitochondrial function, blood flow, and neural network changes. This study will be among the newest interventions being carried out at the new Fixel Institute of Neurological Diseases.