Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have discovered a new biological indicator which could help to detect and track the progress of Parkinson's disease.
Using highly sensitive new brain imaging techniques, scientists from The University of Nottingham and clinicians at Nottingham University Hospitals National Health Service (NHS) Trust have discovered a measurable trait on the human brain which could be used to diagnose Parkinson's and track its progression.
Parkinson's develops when dopamine producing nerve cells in the brain die. Current diagnostic imaging tests using nuclear medical techniques are costly and cannot be used to monitor disease progression.
There has been a need for such imaging tracking in Parkinson's disease to allow for the development of neuroprotective drugs through clinical trials.
The Nottingham researchers led by Penny Gowland, Professor of Physics, believe that the discovery could potentially lead to a new diagnostic test for the disease.
"When conducting a different study of patients with Parkinson's, by using a 7T MRI scanner (which is an extremely powerful MRI scanner), we discovered a mark which looked like a 'tear drop' on the brains of healthy subjects, and this was not visible in the brains of patients," said Gowland, who is based at the University's Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre.
"In subsequent post mortem scans, we actually discovered that this was something called nigrosome 1. It was known from previous post mortem work that nigrosome 1 could not be found in brains of Parkinson's disease patients," Gowland said.
"So this was a breakthrough discovery in that we now know that using this particularly sensitive MRI scanner, we can see that patients living with Parkinson's disease don't have this particular feature in their brain," Gowland added.
"We are now conducting a study of patients with Parkinson's to ascertain when this mark actually disappears, which could potentially have huge implications for early diagnosis of the illness, and subsequently how it is treated," she said.
"By using highly accurate and sensitive brain imaging techniques for Parkinson's we are able to get an insight into the mechanism that causes the disease for the first time," said Dr Nin Bajaj, Associate Honorary Clinical Professor in Neurology at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
The paper was published in the journal Neurology.
