March 2021

Regional Gray Matter Volume Changes in Parkinson’s Disease with Orthostatic Hypotension

Biomarkers /

PD patients with OH had more severe autonomic dysfunction and reduction in volume in the right inferior temporal cortex than those without OH. The right inferior temporal volume was positively correlated with the Qualitative Scoring MMSE Pentagon Test (QSPT) score, reflecting visuospatial/visuoperceptual function, and negatively correlated with the Composite Autonomic Severity Score (CASS). The CASS […]

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CSF Biomarker Flags Parkinson’s Pathology Years Before Symptoms Appear

A-Synuclein, Biomarkers, iRBD, Pre-PD, Vagal Nerve /

Real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC), a test for pathological misfolded protein, detected alpha-synuclein in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with isolated rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (IRBD), years before clinical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease or dementia with Lewy bodies emerged. In these patients, RT-QuIC detected misfolded alpha-synuclein in CSF with both sensitivity and specificity of

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Study reveals close link between Parkinson’s disease and certain immune cells in the blood

Biomarkers, Dementia - Lewy Bodies, iRBD, Pre-PD /

The researchers have studied a group of patients suffering from REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD), a condition where the patients physically act vivid dreams with vocalizations and movements. If a patient e.g. dreams that they are running, their legs will move as if they were actually running. The sleep disorder is often discovered by a

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Probable REM sleep behavior disorder is associated with longitudinal cortical thinning in Parkinson’s disease

Biomarkers, iRBD, Pre-PD /

These results support the idea that RBD is an important marker of rapid progression in PD motor and non-motor symptoms and suggest that the atrophy in the left insula and caudate nucleus might be the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of the poorer prognosis in PD patients with RBD. CLICK TO REVIEW

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The Aged Intestine: Performance and Rejuvenation

Biomarkers, ENS, Gut Permeability / Leaky Gut /

Owing to the growing elderly population, age-related problems are gaining increasing attention from the scientific community. With senescence, the intestine undergoes a spectrum of changes and infirmities that are likely the causes of overall aging. Therefore, identification of the aged intestine and the search for novel strategies to rescue it, are required. Although progress has

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The Role of Gut Bacterial Metabolites in Brain Development, Aging and Disease

Biomarkers, Butyrate, Gut Microbiota, Gut-Brain axis, Metabolites, Short Chain Fatty Acids /

We found significantly altered SCFA levels in patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), affective disorders, multiple sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). NonSCFAs yielded less significantly distinct changes in faecal levels of patients and healthy controls, with the majority of findings were derived from urinary and blood samples. Preclinical studies have implicated different bacterial metabolites

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Gut microbial ecosystem in Parkinson’s disease: New clinico-biological insights from multi-omics

Biomarkers, Butyrate, Gut Microbiota, Metabolites /

Gut microbial function is altered in PD, characterized by differentially abundant metabolic features that provide important biological insights into gut-brain pathophysiology. Their clinical relevance further supports a role for microbial-metabolites as potential targets for the development of new biomarkers and therapies in PD. CLICK TO REVIEW

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Iron homeostasis in host and gut bacteria – a complex interrelationship

Gut Microbiota, Iron /

Iron deficiency is the most frequent nutritional deficiency in the world with an estimated 1.4 billion people affected. The usual way to fight iron deficiency is iron fortification, but this approach is not always effective and can have undesirable side effects including an increase in the growth and virulence of gut bacterial pathogens responsible for

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Cross-seeding of alpha-synuclein aggregation by amyloid fibrils of food proteins

A-Synuclein, ENS, Vagal Nerve /

In this work, we investigated the ability of amyloid fibrils derived from two food proteins to heterologously seed the aggregation of the PD-related aSyn protein. While β-lactoglobulin amyloid fibril seeds were not able to induce aSyn aggregation, we identified a fibril surface–mediated nucleation mechanism for the seeding of aSyn aggregation by hen egg white lysozyme

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The industrial solvent trichloroethylene induces LRRK2 kinase activity and dopaminergic neurodegeneration in a rat model of Parkinson’s disease

A-Synuclein /

 Interestingly, we found that TCE not only induced LRRK2 kinase activity in the brain, but produced a significant dopaminergic lesion in the nigrostriatal tract, elevated oxidative stress, and caused endolysosomal dysfunction and α-synuclein accumulation. Together, these data suggest that TCE-induced LRRK2 kinase activity contributed to the selective toxicity of dopaminergic neurons. We conclude that gene-environment interactions

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