(Press-News.org) In a small study, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found that positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the heart may identify people who will go on to develop Parkinson’s disease or Lewy body dementia among those at-risk for these diseases. The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and led by scientists at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of NIH, may advance efforts to detect the earliest changes that years later lead to Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia.
In 34 people with Parkinson’s disease risk factors, researchers conducted PET scans of the heart to gain insight into levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. They found that the scans could distinguish individuals who would later be diagnosed with Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia—both are brain diseases caused by abnormal deposits of the protein alpha-synuclein that form clumps known as Lewy bodies. The research was conducted at the NIH Clinical Center, currently the only location for 18F-dopamine PET scanning.
Norepinephrine is derived from dopamine, which is deficient in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease. Earlier work from David S. Goldstein, M.D., Ph.D., NINDS Principal Investigator, demonstrated that people with Lewy body diseases had severe depletion of cardiac norepinephrine, which is normally released by the nerves that supply the heart.
In the present study, the research team led by Dr. Goldstein found that at-risk individuals with low 18F-dopamine-derived radioactivity in the heart were highly likely to develop Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia during long-term follow-up, compared to individuals with the same risk factors but with normal radioactivity. PET scans work by using a radioactive tracer to visualize metabolic or biochemical processes in body organs.
“Imagine the scans are frames of a movie,” Dr. Goldstein said. “The frame at 8 minutes during the first evaluation is already enough to identify the people who are likely to go on to develop a central Lewy body disease years later.”
In the study, 34 people at risk for Parkinson’s had cardiac 18F-dopamine PET scans every 18 months for up to about 7.5 years or until they were diagnosed with the disease. Participants had three or more Parkinson’s risk factors, which included a family history of the disease; loss of sense of smell, which occurs commonly in Parkinson’s; a sleep disorder in which people act out their dreams, known as dream enactment behavior; and symptoms of orthostatic intolerance, such as light-headedness upon standing.
Of the nine individuals with low cardiac 18F-dopamine-derived radioactivity at their first scan, eight were diagnosed later with Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia. Only 1 of 11 participants with normal initial radioactivity developed a central Lewy body disease. All nine participants who developed a Lewy body disease had low radioactivity before or at the time of diagnosis.
The study supports the view that synuclein disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia affect the nerves of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates automatic body processes like heart rate and blood pressure. Work by Dr. Goldstein and others has shown synuclein aggregation occurs in nerves to the gastrointestinal organs, skin, and glands in both these disorders.
“We think that in many cases of Parkinson’s and dementia with Lewy bodies the disease processes don’t actually begin in the brain. Through autonomic abnormalities the processes eventually make their way to the brain,” Dr. Goldstein said. “The loss of norepinephrine in the heart predicts and precedes the loss of dopamine in the brain in Lewy body diseases.”
Finding biomarkers that could help detect diseases before symptoms begin, known as the preclinical period, is critical for testing early interventions. The visible motor symptoms of Parkinson’s occur only after substantial damage or loss of dopamine-producing neurons in regions of the brain that control movement.
“Once symptoms begin, most of the damage has already been done,” said Dr. Goldstein. “You want to be able to detect the disease early on. If you could salvage the dopamine terminals that are sick but not yet dead, then you might be able to prolong the time before the person shows symptoms.”
Using the PET scans to identify people with preclinical Lewy body diseases could enable testing of preventative approaches such as lifestyle modifications, dietary supplements, or medications.
Article:
Goldstein, DS, et al. Cardiac noradrenergic deficiency revealed by 18F-dopamine positron emission tomography identifies preclinical central Lewy body diseases. JCI. October 26, 2023. DOI: 10.1172/JCI172460
###
NINDS is the nation’s leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov/.
END
Macarena de la Fuente, MD, chief of neuro-oncology at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has been elected to the Society of Neuro-Oncology (SNO)’s board of directors.
She will serve as the neurology representative and becomes the first Hispanic elected to the multidisciplinary board, which strives to advance brain tumor research, education and collaboration.
De la Fuente has been an SNO member for over a decade and previously served as chair of the society’s ...
ATLANTA — New research at ACR Convergence 2023, the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting, demonstrates that CAR-T cell therapy could lead to sustained suppression of autoantibodies in treatment-resistant lupus while maintaining a robust response to vaccines (Abstract #0607).
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, lupus) is a complex autoimmune disease marked by the production of autoantibodies to nucleic acid DNA and nuclear protein autoantigens and is associated with dysfunctional B cells. It mainly affects women and is more common and severe in people who ...
PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [November 7, 2023] — New research in the November 2023 issue of JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network suggests that patients who have insufficient levels of vitamin D before starting paclitaxel treatment are more likely to experience peripheral neuropathy. According to an analysis of 1,191 patients with early-stage breast cancer—using data collected in the SWOG S0221 study—20.7% of patients with vitamin D deficiency experienced at least a grade 3 level of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), compared to 14.2% of those with sufficient vitamin D levels. The researchers ...
The rapid adoption of zero-emission electric vehicles will move the nation close to an 80% or more drop in transportation greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from the 2019 level according to researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
The researchers came to that conclusion after running thousands of computer simulations on the steps needed to decarbonize passenger and freight travel, which make up the largest contributor to greenhouse gases. While they advised that “no single technology, policy, or behavioral change” is enough by itself to reach the target, eliminating tailpipe emissions would be a major factor.
“There ...
After the Southwest Research Institute-led Lucy mission flew past the asteroid Dinkinesh, the team discovered that it is even more “marvelous” as its newly discovered satellite is now shown to be a double-lobed moonlet. As NASA’s Lucy spacecraft continued to return data acquired during its first asteroid encounter on Nov. 1, 2023, the team discovered that Dinkinesh’s surprise satellite is itself a contact binary, made of two smaller objects touching each other.
In the first image of Dinkinesh and its satellite taken at closest approach, the two lobes of the contact binary lined up, one behind the other, ...
New maps of more than 1,000 deep-seated landslides in the Puget Lowlands of Washington State provide evidence of the last major earthquake along the Seattle Fault about 1,100 years ago—and may also hold traces of older earthquakes along the fault.
Clusters of landslides offer a potential record of earthquakes, if researchers can determine when the landslides occurred. The new study published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America combines information about the location of these Puget Lowlands landslides along with new dates obtained from measuring the surface roughness of the landslides.
The ...
Researchers led by Mroj Alassaf at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the United States have discovered a link between obesity and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. Using the common fruit fly, the research shows that a high-sugar diet — a hallmark of obesity — causes insulin resistance in the brain, which in turn reduces the ability to remove neuronal debris, thus increasing the risk of neurodegeneration. Publishing November 7th in the open access journal PLOS Biology, the research will impact therapies designed to reduce the risk of developing ...
A common, cat-borne parasite already associated with risk-taking behavior and mental illness in humans may also contribute to exhaustion, loss of muscle mass, and other signs of “frailty” in older adults, suggests a study published Nov. 6 in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Science.
The research, by an international team of scientists including University of Colorado Boulder, University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of A Coruña in Spain, is the latest to explore how the tiny, single-celled ...
Scientists have unlocked the genetic basis underlying the remarkable variation in body size observed in song sparrows, one of North America’s most familiar and beloved songbirds. This discovery also provides insights into this species’ capacity to adapt to the challenges of climate change.
The study, published today in Nature Communications, used genomic sequencing to successfully pinpoint eight genetic variants, or DNA mutations, largely responsible for the nearly threefold difference in body size observed across the song sparrow range from Mexico to Alaska. For instance, song sparrows that live year-round ...
A nationwide study of 21,878 older nursing home residents with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) found a higher rate of bleeding and little difference in the effectiveness of standard versus reduced-dose treatment using direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC).
“Given the potential harms and unclear benefits of standard DOAC dosing, our results support the use of reduced-dose DOACs for many older adults with multiple chronic medical conditions,” said Dr. Sarah Berry, MD, MPH, of Hebrew SeniorLife’s Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research.
DOACs can prevent serious thrombotic events like stroke in residents with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation ...
