| This Week’s Parkinson’s News Update |
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| Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash |
| Study Explores New Way to Monitor Neuroinflammation Parkinson’s News Today Overactivation of microglia cells — known to drive neuroinflammation in diseases like Parkinson’s — can be detected by measuring a panel of different proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, a study reports. The finding supports the potential of these proteins as biomarkers in the clinic to aid in monitoring neuroinflammation stages and response to therapies in patients. The study, “Signatures of glial activity can be detected in the CSF proteome,” was published in the journal PNAS. Chronic inflammation in the brain (neuroinflammation) is a hallmark of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. “Inflammatory processes in the brain are common in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. In these processes, so-called microglial cells play an important role,” Stephan Käser, PhD, with the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research and the University of Tübingen, in Germany, said in a press release. Kaser and professor Mathias Jucker, PhD also at the University of Tübingen, led the study. —————— Scientists Develop Blood Test With Promise for Early Diagnosis Parkinson’s News Today Scientists in Germany have developed the first highly sensitive test to detect altered alpha-synuclein proteins in blood samples from patients with Parkinson’s disease. The test accurately distinguishes people with Parkinson’s from those without the disease and has the potential to detect the disease early, before symptoms start, according to a new study. “We developed a biochemical blood-based test for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. With our procedure, we were able to distinguish the 30 Parkinson’s patients from the 50 control individuals with a very high degree of sensitivity,” Annika Kluge, MD, said in a press release. Kluge is from the Arbeitsgruppe Früherkennung Parkinson (working group on the early recognition of Parkinson’s) at the faculty of medicine at Kiel University. The study, “Detection of neuron-derived pathological alpha-synuclein in blood,” was published in the journal Brain. Clinicians currently diagnose Parkinson’s based on movement symptoms, neuroimaging scans, and invasive brain and spinal fluid tests that detect clumps of the alpha-synuclein protein. However, Parkinson’s has similar symptoms to other brain diseases such as dementia with Lewy bodies and is often misdiagnosed. —————— Dysfunction Of Lysosome Protein TMEM175 Could Be Risk Factor Parkinson’s News Today Two European pharma companies have teamed up to create a technology platform that will help people with Parkinson’s disease find the best time to take their medication and make personalized adjustments to their treatment schedules.Gerresheimer AG is partnering with Finnish MedTech start-up Adamant Health Oy on new technologies that aim to help patients to determine the optimum timing for their Parkinson’s therapies.“Our common goal is to optimize the treatment of Parkinson’s and to improve the patient’s quality of life dramatically,” Dietmar Siemssen, CEO of Gerresheimer, said in a press release.“The investment is part of our strategic expansion into personalized drug delivery devices combined with platform-based and digital disease monitoring,” Siemssen said. |